The Death of Third
by Hilscher
Summary: What if The 3rd had not been the first player to die? Something has gone wrong within Deus Ex Machina's Causality Continuum. Defying an inevitable fate, the psychopathic Hiyama Takao survives, and the destiny of every player is changed forever.
1. Takao and the Cop

Hiyama Takao stood in darkness, behind an electric sounding roar. His grim, serious face was illuminated only by an erratic and fierce shower of sparks. The sound was the tool grinder of the school's vocational shop, and the long shadows cast across the weary middle school teacher's face imbued it with an appropriately sinister quality.

He stopped the grinder and let it spin down, admiring the keen blade's renewed gleam in the darkness. Takao flipped open his phone, its LCD glow providing a new light source. The Murder Diary, a prophetic wonder detailing precisely how to stalk and corner his victims. With it, he should have been invincible, but there was a problem. The police were closing in on him; he was being hunted. He had been overzealous with the rush he felt when the vast power of the Murder Diary had first been granted to him by god himself, and he had done the unthinkable. He shat where he ate; killed one of his own students.

"What an idiot I am!" Takao thought bitterly over the incessant ringing in his ears. Several days earlier he had been attacked by Uryuu Minene, the international terrorist. He had nearly turned the tables on her and killed her, but in the end she escaped using a flashbang in close quarters, and his hearing had not been the same since. At first, he didn't know why a wanted fugitive would come for his life, but it would of course have something to do with his Diary. The pieces were not difficult to put together. He cursed his foolishness again: "If only I hadn't killed that little slut."

It was that _whore's_ own fault. He knew what kind of girl that Yoko had been since he had first saw her. Doing this job for so long, he saw scores of young women come through his classroom. He recognized _filth _when he saw it, but he would have never done it without the diary. It was unthinkable to break his own rules, but god had tricked him! He had thought himself untouchable, but one thing had become certain. _There were other diary owners!_

The bomber woman Uryuu was one. Beyond that, he was also sure that someone in the police or government had an oracle of their own, explaining how the police had closed so much distance on him. Even though he had killed one of his own students, he had left no evidence. There would have been no reason to assume that she was any closer to Takao's identity as the Sakurami City Butcher than any of his other victims. It was all the accursed diaries' doing. He had no way of knowing how many diary owners there were, but he knew he had to _slaughter_ them all.

Takao grinned maliciously, but regained his composure. Amano also had one, he was sure of it. He had convinced the administration to run a series of surprise tests to monitor 'student growth,' but the real reason had been to root out statistical anomalies. Of course tests would be no trouble for diary owners, and there seemed to be so many out to get him. If there was a diary owner in the student body, he had wanted to find out. He had suspected that the bastard god Deus had surrounded him with enemies, and sure enough there was one among his very own pupils! He had confirmed his fears, that the very universe and god himself were conspiring against him!

Takao flipped his phone shut, slipped it into his trenchcoat pocket, and slammed his closed fist into the sturdy shop table, gritting his teeth and taking in a deep steadying breath through his nose. With his other hand he brought the sharpened blade forward and rested it gingerly on his palm, admiring it one last time before sliding it home into its sheathe.

"No, God is not out to get me. God is on my side." Takao told himself. He said it again, and then three more times. He let the truth of the words wrap around him like a security blanket. "He knows of my tireless vigilance against the _rot _of this world, and smiles on my righteousness. This is not punishment, this is a test, and I shall _pass._"

* * *

**4/22 - 11:52:14 PM [Hiding Supplies]**

"**I hid the trenchcoat and my tools in the duffel strapped to the underside of the train platform at the usual place. Had to wait until 12:03:12 to run quietly across the street to avoid the cops patrolling the streets after last night's incident."**

**4/23 - 12:15:45 AM [Heading Home]**

"**I made it out of the patrol area around the school and should be in the clear heading home."**

Takao was uneasy, carrying two duffels to the place his phone prophesied he would. There were hooks here he had drilled onto the underside of the wooden train platform, weeks ago, for aiding in his dark work. Despite having the far-sight of his phone he felt shivers of fear for the first time in years. He had no idea what other sorts of diaries were out there, and what sorts of actions might result in his capture. It was terrifying and exhilarating at once. Takao felt alive.

After placing one of his two duffels on the hooks, he took another with him. Watching his phone, a police car drove past at precisely 12:03:05, and he bounded silently across the street into the deep shadows of the alleyway beyond, and from there onto the railroad tracks.

Sirens. Within minutes the train platform was crawling with officers. As Takao had known would be the case. They had been impossibly close on his trail for days, and he had grown accustomed to this. He slid a sturdy nylon strap behind the rusted iron downspout of a cluster of homes, and began winching himself up laboriously, meter by meter, to the roof. He had no intention of running just yet; he was going to watch the scene unfold.

They immediately found his duffel. As he had known would be the case. A tall, grizzled man with dark locks drawn into a pony tail stepped out of a car and made his way towards the discovered bag. He drew deeply on a cigarette as he marched up to the bag with impatient annoyance. But it wasn't Takao's tools he had recovered; those were with Takao at his side in the spare bag. His diary had foretold that he would place those incriminating tools down there, but instead he had placed something else equally illegal. Takao took Uryuu Minene's detonator out of his pocket and pressed the button, detonating the bomb he had taken from her during their battle.

An explosion ripped through the night, drowning out the sound of a changing future from his phone and disturbing the tranquil peace. It was better when there was chaos, anyway, when he couldn't hear the feedback in his ears, constantly twisting away like a dagger in his mind. It had been a valuable lesson - he was blind to his prey when they fought back. His diary was purely offensive. The lesson had been taken to heart, but it still stung to be reminded of her escape and his failure. When there was chaos and noise he could not hear it, and he was able to breathe.

Takao peered below, now, as the smoke cleared. What he saw was impossible, yet not entirely unexpected. The man who had opened the bag had dove away at the last moment! He had to be a diary owner. It was the only way he could have known to throw the bag and dive away in the few seconds it took Takao to take out the detonator and change the future. Counting himself, Amano, and Uryuu, that made four oracles. It was three too many. He would enjoy killing them all one by one, but this cop was the biggest threat by far.

"The fact that you arrived here immediately after I placed the bag rather than ambushing me means you did not know I would do it until I did! Your diary only tells you about crimes!" Takao reveled in his glorious victory. "This area was swarming with cops, and when my bomb was inevitably discovered at some point in the future there was bound to be an investigation! Thus, you were able to immediately pounce on the crime after it took place! I have you pegged, cop!"

Takao took a deep breath. He still had to escape. The cop would also know that the crime had just been committed by the same reasoning, and attempt to scour the area. But Takao was a careful man, and had planned this test from the beginning. He stood, took a few strong steps, and flung himself from the roof. He sailed through the air, hearing only the 'iiiiiii' in his ears, before tumbling onto the deck of the next house over. The occupants would no doubt be awake from the explosion, and the sound would no doubt eventually be reported.

Which meant the cop would already know about it.

"Kuso!" he spat. The drop had been more than he had anticipated, and his duffel had nearly slipped from his hand on impact. He opened it, panickedly brought a bundle of rope out, and tied it around the railing of the deck with a quick clip. He could hear voices coming towards the deck door from inside the residence. A siren started wailing closer and closer. This cop was fast. Takao threw the duffel off the balcony, grabbed the rope, and leapt at once towards the railroad tracks. He crashed down rapidly through the leafy overstory of landscaping bamboo, down to the waiting motorcycle and his bag of tools. Shouts from the balcony no longer concerned him, he was on the motorcycle and rocketing away down the railroad, tires rumbling terribly on the bumpy uneven gravel and wood. Its large muffler jutting out behind made the full throttle, eerily quiet ride sound almost surreal when combined with his hearing impairment.

"There mustn't be a chase, there mustn't be a chase," Takao thought as he opened his phone for guidance. The cop's diary was pretty powerful, it seemed. It would find leads as soon as they were left. He had to vanish quickly, without a trace, or he would be caught.

His phone would necessarily tell him his most optimal course of actions that would create the longest series of events lasting out three months, but it would only work if he was stalking someone. Beyond that, its only limitation was being blind to the actions of other diary owners who could also change the future at will. Well, that, and its range. July 28 seemed to be the limit of its power, and it didn't extend further as the days went on. God's test would be over one way or another by that date, it seemed.

"Fine, I'll hunt Amano! Now show me the path forward!" Takao cried inwardly, grinning with the thrill of life pumping through his veins and his long red hair whipping in the cool night air behind him. Far in the distance he could hear the shouts of police investigating the disturbance at the house.

**_~Zrruuuu~_**

The future changed.

**4/23 - 12:04:32 AM [Fleeing the Police]**

**"Police car cut me off at the road crossing, I had to take out my blade and drag it across the officer's throat as I rode past. Escaped leaving no evidence behind towards Amano's residence."**

**4/23 - 12:38:00 AM [Amano Residence]**

**Evaded the search area by staying on side streets and made it to Amano's home.**

Takao began to laugh as he drew the blade from the duffel and readied it. A car screeched to a desperate halt at the end of the tracks in the gloomy patch ahead dimly lit by street lights, and the officer flung himself from his vehicle.

"Moron, you're only hurrying towards your own demise!" Takao laughed even louder and more maniacally. He swept the blade forward, baring his teeth zestfully as it caught flesh and a warm spray of life essence was freed into the darkness. It almost frightened him how useless non-diary owners were. Without knowledge of the future, they were impotent to change it, and as powerless as a leaf in a windstorm to the whims of a man with the prescience they lacked.

Still, taking down the cop-oracle was going to be nearly impossible. Takao had needed to put his life on the line just to find out the cop's identity and future diary ability, and had failed to kill him even with a bomb detonated at close range. Yet the cop was Takao's most dire threat. Something would have to be done, but it would have to be within the law, at least until the final moment. For now, though, it was time to focus on other matters.

"Amano..." Takao breathed with a malevolent smirk.

* * *

"Amano..." Gasai Yuno breathed, smiling gently in the dark. "Yukkii..."


	2. Takao and the Girl

"Amano..." Gasai Yuno breathed, smiling gently in the dark. "Yukkii..."

Yuno shivered in the cold night air, standing on the iron rebar she had drilled into the opposing side of the privacy wall around the Amano residence's small lawn. She was peeking over the wall from the narrow alleyway beyond, staring at her future husband.

He was only 10 meters away, across the lawn and in his kitchen, preparing dinner for himself. His absentee mother had left him to fend for himself again. How much Yuno wished she could prepare something for him, so he didn't have to eat packaged noodles! She sighed sweetly as the wind picked up, tossing her cherry blossom colored tails of hair about. Slowly, she sank back down off her tiptoes on the crudely jutting rebar, and hopped down to street level for a rest.

Yuno didn't need to be outside in the cold. Her future diary told her every minute detail about her beloved Amano Yukiteru. However, tonight she had wanted to see him, at least for a little while. Soon, she wouldn't have to hide in alleyways to see his face. Soon they would be together always.

**_~Zrruuuu~_**

Yuno started. That noise was from her diary. The future had changed. She tore her phone out of her sweater pocket and opened it.

**4/23 - 12:10 AM [Yuki's House]**

**Yuki finishes his supper.  
I hope it was tasty!**

**4/23 - 12:20 AM [Yuki's House]**

**The Serial Killer from the news arrived here of all places!**  
**Yuki is in trouble!**

Yuno's pink eyes widened in terror, but she took a shuddering breath and calmed herself. A serial killer, here? She read on.

**4/23 - 12:30 AM [Yuki's House]**

**Yuki heard a noise downstairs and went to investigate.  
No, Yuki, run away!**

**4/23 - 12:40 AM [Convenience Store]**

**Yuki was ambushed by the killer in the parking lot and stabbed!  
Yuki is bleeding, someone help us!**

**4/23 - 12:50 AM [Convenience Store]**

**Yuki bled to death.  
It's all my fault!**

Yuno looked around, tears welling up at the thought of something happening to Yuki. She had to change the future, but her diary was so weak. It could only see the fate of her love, leaving her blind to everything else.

Yuno started to dial 1-1-0 for the police, but she stopped before pressing send. There was between ten and twenty minutes before the killer arrived with no way of knowing the exact time. If she summoned the police too soon, they might leave before the killer came.

Yuno whimpered softly to herself, trying not to let indecisiveness overwhelm her. It was on her to save Yuki, no one else could. Yuno went to her bag, and then jumped the privacy wall, and quickly made her way in a crouching run towards the front gate. She opened her bag, where a large sheathed blade rested on top of a fresh change of clothes. She looked around, blushing, and pulled her skirt down after ensuring she was truly unseen. Pulling the clothes on, she also wrapped a t-shirt around her face and tied the sleeves in a knot, then pulled the collar up over her head and back down, hiding her hair and face securely within the shirt.

Carefully, she tucked the pink tails of ribboned hair down her blouse and inspected herself in a compact mirror. She was anonymous, it would have to do. She could not take her bag with her, so she hid it in Yuki's yard and hopped the privacy wall once more.

Knife and phone in hand, she raced towards the convenience store. In the worst case scenario she would be able to intervene before the killing blow, but she had a plan to try to make sure that it never came to that in the first place.

She burst into the convenience store, and reversed the grip on her blade as she flung herself over the counter in a blitz towards the cashier, who screamed as confused customers broke into full flight from the chaos of Yuno's assault.

The small fourteen year old girl grabbed the tall male cashier by the back of the collar and pulled his back into a painful arch as her knife pressed into his throat.

"Put your hand on your head and open the register with the other!" The delinquent girl growled in a low voice. Her voice was usually soft and honeyed, but for a girl her size she could be fiercely intimidating. It almost surprised Yuno herself how feral she sounded. The man she had assailed was practically whimpering in shock in confusion, and groping for the register to obey the command. Yuno had thought he might try to overpower her with his obvious size advantage, but the teller did not seem to be the heroic type. "Faster! Put the money in a bag!"

**_~Zrruuuu~_**

Already, the customers who had scattered out of the building were dialing emergency services on their phones and taking pictures. They had changed the future. Yuno brought the knife away from the unfortunate cashier's throat and slammed the butt of it sharply into his temple with all of her might while kicking him in the back of the knee sending him viciously to the ground. She ran quickly into the back room of the store, and out its rear exit, escaping through the alleyways and yards she knew so well. She knew who was home, who was awake, and where all the best hiding spots were. She had stalked Amano Yukiteru for so long, this was like a second home to her.

Yuno could have waited and called the police, but this way was better. Not only would there be police on hand at the scene where Yuki was prophesied to die, but their mere presence might deter the serial killer all together. It was better than a single officer coming by for a look and the awkward questions that would put too much risk on Yuki's life with too many possible points of failure.

Besides, she had a feeling that this was no coincidence. This was probably directly related to her future diary. If the killer also could tell the future, one or two police could not possibly serve as a deterrent. They would be helpless pawns effortlessly dispatched. Many police searching for a criminal girl in the neighborhood, however, might have a chance.

* * *

Takao glanced at his phone as it groaned out the noise signalling an altered future, and he exhaled sharply through his teeth in contemptuous annoyance. Something had changed Amano's fate. Where before it predicted his death in the parkinglot of a convenience store, it now predicted that police would intervene. Could Amano have changed his own fate? He did not know the boy to be exceptionally bright, but with a diary, mortal attributes like intelligence or strength became somewhat less relevant.

"No, I will not give up so easily." Takao muttered softly. "This is to be expected, it's how the game works. Each player makes his move, attempting to thwart the other. If I give up at every player's first counter, then I will inevitably fail this test. I must see beyond it, and defeat it. Amano, I have failed to get much through your dense skull, and in that I have failed you. But I will not fail to teach you fear."

Takao realized he was breathing heavily, lost in his retributive homicidal fantasies. He put the phone away, and thought. It was no mere taste for drama that made him think of causing Amano fear, it was an essential part of his strategy. Each player would counter faster and faster as it came down to the line, and that was where Takao's greatest weakness lay. If one of those counters involved fighting back, he would be blind to the ambush. In order to maintain prescience, it was paramount to keep his prey in fear and running, where his victory was assured.

"I can handle any number of police-pawns, but the problem lies in the diary owner cop who restricts my autonomy. That diary he owns is the absolute nemesis of mine." Takao said to himself. More than muttering quietly he was speaking out loud as though to another person. If nothing else, when his voice reverberated into his inner ear, he was not annoyed by damned ringing. "However, he is not hunting Takao, he is only hunting the Sakurami City Butcher. He cannot possibly respond to every crime in the city at once. And he cannot respond until there is a crime, regardless. So, I will not use my normal disguise. I will be more vulnerable, but Amano lives alone with his mother, there shouldn't be too much trouble cutting the both of them down and escaping."

The alternating red and blue lights dancing at length across the dark pavement near a convenience store lit the way for his approach. Takao passed without issue, rubbernecking towards the scene. It was a late hour, but the excitement of the event that had drawn police there seemed to have roused the entire neighborhood, and it took on the quality of a muted excitement, like being in a mall after hours or being on a train during a blackout.

If he had to guess, he would say that the store had been held up or that someone had been killed there already. Amano holding up a store? Or killing someone? He found the idea absurd. Yet how else could it be explained? The event, whatever it was, would not have taken place without a diary owner's intervention. Someone had caused this trouble for him, but he could not think how. Every paranoid instinct told him to be cautious of this unanswered question, but he knew Amano too well to believe he was a threat. Perhaps that was why he felt so uneasy.

**4/23 - 12:24:09 AM [Amano Residence]**

**Parked my motorcycle in the alleyway behind the Amano Residence. Didn't have to wait for any patrols to pass. Climbed into the Amano yard using some rebar embedded in the wall.**

**4/23 - 12:26:33 AM [Amano Residence]**

**Saw Amano head upstairs for bed looking tired. Pried the backdoor open with the flat of my knife. Created a loud noise. Amano heading back downstairs to find out what it was.**

Takao did as he was bade, his body burning with the strain of listening to every noise, alert for the threat he knew was waiting somewhere nearby. He had to establish dread and regain the initiative, or he was helpless. Takao searched for a moment, and found the rusted iron bars in the wall, and it did indeed make vaulting the short wall exceedingly easy. They seemed made for just such a purpose, and that made him suspicious of them, but he could sense no trap and forged forward. Immediately, however, Takao's hair began to stand on end. It was a wretched sensation that he hated to the point of illness. He hated feeling like this, but at the same time he relished the experience of overcoming it.

And there it was. He couldn't believe his eyes. Gasai Yuno, yet _another_ of his students, stood calmly before him in the middle of the yard, her hair flowing off to one side in the breeze. A large blade was in her hand, and she was staring directly into Takao's eyes.

He was utterly made. However, she was not screaming for help. It was overwhelmingly obvious that she intended to fight him. His diary predicted that he would be forced to retreat by this girl.

"Ha... Ha ha ha!" Takao laughed loudly. The scene was just too ridiculous. A fourteen year old girl challenging her serial killer teacher to a midnight deathmatch in the backyard of a stranger's house? For a moment Takao gave serious thought to the idea that he may have been dreaming. So Deus had put not one but two diary owners into his classroom. The god clearly had a sense of humor.

"Hiyama-sensei... And the killer from the news, too." Yuno said into the night, as loudly as she dared. Her eyes were like unflinching diamonds glinting in the night. She paused for a long instant, and then there was a sharp intake of breath and a defiant cry. " I won't let you hurt Yuki!"

This was his chance. If Takao could establish fear in this tiny girl, he could win. Gasai-san was not much different than any of the other girls he had culled from the miserable Earth, even if she did have a diary. He drew himself up tall on the top of the wall, broadening his stance, and became an imposing silhouette towering above her. Slowly, he drew his sword from its sheathe and he whispered. "Watching you bleed, Gasai, will be a serendipitous treasure I will cherish for the rest of my life."

He leapt down from the wall, committing himself to the battle. If he couldn't overpower a girl, he had no business living anyway. Each circled the other, blade in one hand and phone in the other.

"The police will know your identity by the end of today, thanks to me." Yuno gloated, watching Takao's footing as he edged in ever closer. "Even if you win, you can't escape now."

Takao laughed, and took a swift testing swipe at her with gritted teeth. She was quick, nimble, and she had fighting spirit as evidenced by a bold counter-attack aimed at his groin. Bold? Or desperate?

"I think the one who can't escape is you, Gasai. This neighborhood is teeming with police and you haven't dared raise your voice too loud. You fear the police at least as much as I do - perhaps more. You did something and tried to make them your shield, but now they are your prison!"

The battle began in earnest, and the two exchanged several lunges and slashes, following the dueling precision of their diaries. It became obvious to Takao that Gasai's diary was next to useless, and his confidence soared.

"Tell me something, Gasai." Takao continued casually while trying to perforate her with his blade. "Did you really think I planned to keep my identity after tonight? Who do you think killed dear little Yoko-chan? It was me! And after killing two students - and with you, it will be three - did you honestly believe I would be stupid enough to think I could do that and maintain my identity? I'm going to kill you, Gasai, and then I'll kill your boyfriend. Furthermore... your diary is useless in this fight, isn't it?"

All Yuno could do was dodge against his flurry of calculating attacks. It was more than a battle of blades, it was a battle of footing as he maneuvered her towards the corner of the yard for the finishing blow where she could no longer dodge him.

"You've forgotten something, Sensei." Yuno said demurely with a sickly sweet smile. "What does your diary predict? It no longer predicts Yuki's death, it predicts you will run away. All I have to do is dodge whenever I hear the future begin to change! A changed future means you win, which means I die. My diary might not be strong, but it can warn me when I'm about to make a mistake. I can keep this up all night!"

She pounced away, tumbling across the lawn and springing back to her feet like some sort of street performer. Takao spat. He had thought he had been driving her into a corner, but she had seen through him all along. Gasai Yuno was _not _just like all the girls he had killed before. And what was more, she was right. She was using his size against him, capitalizing on her small size and speed to keep him engaged in battle with her; engaged in a stalemate. It was not a battle of blades _or _strength, she had made it a contest merely of stamina. Clever girl.

Takao jumped backwards and raised his hand. She was not afraid of him in the least, and he could not win. It was total humiliation. But she was just as trapped as he was. They could negotiate.

"You win this round, Gasai. I'll leave you in peace." Takao conceded, breathing heavily after his exertion. Yuno relaxed visibly, but remained on the balls of her feet to pounce instantaneously if necessary. She was also exhausted by the brief exchange of life or death attacks, but not so tired as Takao was. If they had kept going she may have even eventually worn him down enough to kill him. More likely, they would have been discovered before the battle extended past the hour long mark where degradation would have started to really become apparent. Something else was bothering Takao, though.

He thought he could kill them later by compensating for what he had learned tonight, but something about the idea of facing these two students again filled him with dread; like a half remembered bad dream. In an instant, the hairs on his body stood on end again, and like a vision it overwhelmed him. He backed away from Gasai with staggered steps through labored breathing. He would die if he engaged her again! He didn't know why or how, but he was certain of it. He did not want to die! He could not bear the thought of ever fighting this girl again, but he wasn't in a position to make demands. He had to get Yuno to make the demand. He focused for a minute. He would kill Amano tomorrow. He would kill Amano tomorrow. He began thinking it over and over, until he believed it. Finally, the noise came.

_**~Zruuuu~**_

The two of them simultaneously looked at their phones. It predicted Amano would be attacked the next day. Yuno glared at Takao.

"Don't think I don't notice how tired you are. I might win if this battle continues." Yuno threatened.

"I would run away before that ever became the case, as your phone predicts." Takao countered with a smirk. Gasai Yuno was his smartest pupil, but he could outsmart her here. His voice was cool and paternal; the voice he always used when he was teaching. It was a voice people reflexively trusted, but it was just a mask that Takao wore when it suited him. "But as you say, you do have an advantage, I'll admit it. So what is your demand?"

"I'll hold off on turning you in to the police, and you'll hold off on attacking us." Yuno offered. It was far from a perfect arrangement. Either party could betray it at any point when the threat was no longer outweighed by the benefit. Takao would make arrangements to adopt a new identity and evade the police, while Yuno would make arrangements to kill Takao pre-emptively. But it would keep Yuki safe for at least a little while.

"Accepted." Takao replied amicably. It was exactly what he wanted. When the noise came, he expected it. What he did not expect was how loud it was.

**_~Z-Z-Z-V-R-R-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-CHI-I-I~_**

His phone, Gasai's phone, and he could even hear Amano's phone from up in his room inside the house. They all roared with sound, rewriting the future at a rapid rate. Takao was completely perplexed, but did not let it show. Each diary was rewriting against the others, trying to come to a consensus on the 90 days of future in front of them.

Somehow, Takao had made a major change to the future with his desire not to fight Gasai Yuno and her boyfriend. It seemed to confirm his fear. If he had fought them, he would have died. Now, he would survive. Takao couldn't help himself, he grinned like an idiot. Yuno simply kept glaring at him in the darkness. No doubt, the thought was going through her head:

"Takao Hiyama, what did you do?"

* * *

It was a question that Takao himself did not know the answer to. How did he change the future in such a way? He wasn't sure he could even take credit. Without access to future information from his diary telling him so, it should have been impossible. Perhaps god truly was on his side after all, and had sent him a premonition of his death in order to alter the future in his favor. He didn't think so, though. This was a test from god, and no teacher worth his salt would slip answers to a student being tested. Surely Deus Ex Machina was worth his salt, or he wouldn't be god. Takao's mouth was bone dry. He was afraid.

"I failed to kill the terrorist, I failed to kill the cop. And now I have failed to kill a 50 kilo middle schooler. It's not fair! My diary is pure offense! Killing even diary owners should be a thing of ease for me!" Takao roared in frustration as he made his way home. Little had Gasai known, he had already begun preparing for his life as a fugitive. He had sold his home and moved into a small apartment, sold his car and downsized to a motorcycle - the only thing that could fit in the economy apartment's parking spot besides bicycles - and otherwise liquidated almost every asset he owned, and secured these war funds from being frozen through various means. He was a knight templar against the corruption of the world, but he had no delusions that the world was on his side in this quest. Takao was prepared. If he wanted to break his arrangement with Gasai he could do so at any time. At least, after he acquired the tools to take her down.

"That's right." Takao thought quietly, peace returning to his body and his mind. "I may have failed three times, but I learned something valuable each time. Amano is protected by Gasai who has a weak diary, the cop can predict crimes and is my nemesis, and Uryuu Minene revealed my weakness to prey that fights back. Out of the three, Uryuu should be the easiest quarry. She can be made to fear, she cannot defeat my defenses, and I won't make the same mistakes again."

* * *

Uryuu Minene groaned somewhere inside the cardboard palace she had made her home. Strips of cardboard sat stapled to the planks of a disassembled wooden pallet to give form to a crude house shape, and inside was a torn futon that rested atop more wooden pallets. On the outside wall was proudly written: "Minenehouse."


	3. Takao and the Bomber

Uryuu Minene groaned somewhere inside the cardboard palace she had made her home. Strips of cardboard sat stapled to the planks of a disassembled wooden pallet to give form to a crude house shape, and inside was a torn futon that rested atop more wooden pallets. On the outside wall was proudly written: "Minenehouse."

Minene, her amethyst colored hair bound into loose bunch-pigtails on either side of her head, was ungracefully rolling off of the mattress and out onto the damp riverbank where she had put her 'home' among the various other vagrants and cyber-homeless of Sakurami City. She wore a huge, frilly, gothic lolita dress, and she stood up quickly and smoothed it out to avoid getting it muddy or grass stained.

It was just before dawn, and her phone had made a terrible racket only a few hours earlier. She flipped it up and skimmed through its entries. Her immediate plans were unaffected by whatever change had been made, but further out everything was different. The change to the timeline had been a massive one. The other diary owners, however many of them there were, were keeping busy, and she would have to do her best to not be outshone by them.

First thing was first, she needed oxidizer. Fuel was plentiful in the world, but oxidizers were trickier, and she needed a lot of it to make her bombs. She grinned broadly and stretched her arms and legs, letting out a satisfied noise as other bums gathered in poverty on the bank of the river began to stare. Even among their kind, she was an outcast.

Minene trudged up the levee bank in her cumbersome fancy dress, and into town, staring at her phone. Never looking up from it, she crossed a busy street, its expert guidance being more reliable than her own eyes in avoiding police and oncoming cars. She followed its directions to the bongo truck left unattended by its owner, keys in the ignition, as if it had been laid out there for her use intentionally. Of course, her diary was just leading her to the opportunity that was destined to present itself at that time. It could have been no other way.

Hopping into the truck, she smiled and smoothed out her dress once more. She popped it into gear, and began to drive away. Immediately, a man nearby turned towards her and began to shout angrily and run after her.

"Ah, tough break! See ya 'round!" Minene called out, grinning impishly. The man ran after her as far as the river bridge, and sank to his knees in defeat, panting heavily while cursing the purple haired carjacker.

Life had certainly been one big high since she acquired her Escape Diary, painting a path of constant mobility for her, it was as though all the best things in life were laid out for her taking. Minene couldn't say, however, that she had it all her way. She had only returned to Japan to kill a priest spreading his venom around the world, and she had failed somehow. Not only that, but a serial killer had nearly managed to gut her. She was not the only one with future-telling abilities it had become clear, but why should she ever have been? Being able to see the future could only be a massive boon to her, and she was far better off with it than without it. She would not complain about the competition.

Following the diary's advice, she buckled her seatbelt, and came upon her target, a fumey building surrounded by fences and gates, with loading trucks queuing up to enter. This would be the chemical subcontractor, where she would acquire her drums of stable high test hydrogen peroxide solutions. Excellent for making a fuel consume itself faster in a forceful explosion.

Pulling up to the gate where a security guard waited, her toothy grin widened. The guard was looking down at a clipboard, but soon looked up in dismay at the frilly dressed woman in the truck.

"Hi~!" She said cheerfully, throwing the driver-side door wide open and catching him hard in the face. He immediately keeled over, and she floored it through the gate before the other guard in the booth could raise the alarm and lock down the entrance. The cops had their own prophet, and he had been doggedly hunting her and the serial killer for days; she knew he would be all over this immediately, but her diary was perfect for evading the cop no matter how much force he brought to bear. It was almost a tragic waste of resources for them, she thought with faux-lamentation.

**4/23 - 0518h [Tashiro Chemical Supply]**

**Broke through loading bay 3 and into the storage warehouse. Killed the foreman and made the workers load drums of the high test peroxide onto my truckbed.  
**

**4/23 - 0525h [On a Joyride]**

**Traffic Congestion caused by my mayhem and morning traffic slows my pursuers. I roll down my window and shoot at the front tires of a police car entering the freeway.**

**Helicopters inbound from the south west, ETA 2 minutes.**

**4/23 - 0526h [On a Joyride]**

**Evaded the choppers by exiting the freeway and parking for 3 minutes behind a supermarket.**

**4/23 - 0529h [Looking for Storage]**

**Escaped the search area by driving west for 4 minutes.**

Minene beamed with the thrill of her crime spree as she burst the truck through the roadblock, the hazardous stolen chemical drums in the back of her vehicle sloshing dangerously. Of course they wouldn't explode - fortune was on Minene's side - only another diary owner's intervention could lead to her downfall. With another peek at her diary, she reached up her dress to the thigh holster of her Berreta compact, took it out, and leaned from the window to line up a shot.

Five times she fired, and miraculously something hit the lead vehicle in a pack of police cars speeding up the on-ramp of the highway. It wiped out badly, and caused the cars behind it to slam into the wreckage or veer violently off into the ditch. There was no way she could have made such a shot, one handed, from a moving vehicle before she had acquired her glorious diary. She giggled euphorically and sped on.

She got off the freeway and escaped before the helicopters arrived at the scene, evaded the search area, spent fifteen minutes transferring the heavy drums into a storage unit that had been carelessly left unlocked, and then found a place to abandon her truck. It was all just so easy.

Minene already had a plan forming for killing the cop. He wasn't much of a threat to her with her Escape Diary, but he forced her to spend far too much of her day in daring car chases and it was getting a bit old. First, though, she needed some Minene-time. She plucked a motor car from the trees, went to a hotel downtown, hooked a staff key to a fine suite from Aunt Polly, and had a warm soapy bath.

The reason was because getting sleep was the hardest part of Minene's day. It was when she wasn't mobile. While Minenehouse was a safe haven, it did not provide quality sleep - it was damp, cold, and inconvenient besides. Yet, Minene wasn't allowed to get caught in the act of stealing a bed anywhere else or the cop would immediately show up, thus preventing her beauty sleep. She had to catch three hours here, and five hours there, and was never able to get a full night's rest. It was damned annoying and another good reason to take the cop out. At any rate, this room was scheduled to be vacant for another four hours, so she squealed with delight and dove onto the soft, warm bed after her bath.

As she sprawled out on the huge fluffy bed, her clean skin luxuriating in the feel of the fabric, she tried to think of who she should attack next. She was still working on the details of getting the cop, so for now she needed a different target. Simply sitting it out was not an option; she was Uryuu Minene, and her diary was built for mobility and evasion, the apex of victory. She had to remain constantly in motion to win, like a shark.

"Yes." Minene said sadly, her cocky expression breaking and her eyes getting heavy. "I am a shark..."

* * *

Takao stood at the podium in the middle school, staring as his pupils filtered into the classroom. Gasai Yuno's eyes met with his own, and neither she nor Takao showed any sign of tension. Yuno was not pushing her luck, but if she did, Takao had prepared a weapon for her. Before returning home after the night's events, he had taken it upon himself to acquire the insurance he needed. His diary had given him daring instructions and they had not steered him wrong.

Takao had ridden his motorcycle up alongside a police car, opened its driverside door, and casually slid the full length of his blade down into the poor cop's chest cavity through the inside of his collar bone with one gentle thrust. The car had inevitably crashed, killing the other police officer inside, and allowing Takao to take the assault rifle from the remains of the car, along with the side arm from the deceased driver. The burning fuel and the carnage of the wreckage had also conveniently mangled the bodies in such a way that apparently the tremendous injuries to the inside of the driver's body was never even discovered. Which meant Takao had not even needed to escape yet another police search.

Which was a good thing, too, because Takao's nightlife was playing murder on his nerves and psyche. Today would be his last day as a teacher; he did not intend to show up to work tomorrow. In fact, if he was not terrified of Gasai Yuno he would ventilate her skull at this very moment. He didn't know how she could possibly avoid being gunned down at this range, but knowing of his own death to these unarmed children before him had seriously unnerved him. He was sure he would be much more relaxed once he was actually a fugitive. Playing along with this identity while Gasai sat right in front of him knowing his secret was unbearable.

He already knew everything he needed to know about little Yuno-san, but he was very interested in what Amano's prophetic abilities were. Besides giving him answers to tests, Takao was totally in the dark about Amano. It was time to put his plan into action; something that wouldn't provoke a direct confrontation between himself and Gasai.

"Amano, your studies have markedly improved. Keep up the good work." Takao called out, near the end of class. "If you have time, would you mind speaking to me after class?"

**~Zruuuu~**

Gasai looked slapped and panicked as the future changed. Apparently she hadn't expected a move like this from him. It made Takao wonder what sort of moves she _had _been prepared for. He tried to reassure her with a glance, but it did nothing to calm her. She was fuming. Takao wondered if she would stand up and force the issue with an outburst, but for now she did nothing.

"A-ah." Amano Yuki stammered, surprised by the sudden attention and looking up from his phone. It hadn't predicted that the teacher would call on him for anything today. "Yes sir."

Takao remained seated with Gasai staring daggers at him and other students leaving the classroom near the end. Gasai clearly wasn't going anywhere, and Yuki looked confusedly at her fierce expression towards Takao as he approached the front of the class once everyone else had gone. Yuki wondered if Gasai-san was angry that he had passed her in grades. He felt a little bad, since he had come by those high marks dishonorably.

"Oh well, Gasai-san, you'll have to share the spotlight now!" He thought inwardly, his spirits soaring at the magical luck that had fallen into his life. It was inexplicable, miraculous luck, but there was no sense investing time in worrying about its implications since there had been no way to discover how such an impossible wonder could be; that was how Yuki felt. Smiling from the thought of how easy life was now, he approached Hiyama-sensei and spoke. "Yes?"

"Amano," Takao said, lifting his hands as though with reluctance, and sighing to indicate the same sentiment, "I hate to do this to you because I know you're innocent, but some of your other teachers have expressed the ridiculous notion that you might be cheating due to your soaring grades. I tried to tell them that the questions you've been getting aren't the sorts of things you can just look up the answers to on the internet, but I got orders directly from the Principal just to take a look at your phone. I can give you my word that you won't face such unfounded accusations again, once I vouch for you."

Yuno slammed her open hands down on her desk as hard as she could and threw herself to her feet, while Amano looked down at his feet guiltily and handed his phone to Takao.

"Don't do it, Yukkii!" Yuno screamed, producing a rock from inside her desk, and hurling it at Takao's head. Amano screamed and dropped to the floor. His diary hadn't predicted any of this happening!

Takao grinned hard and raised his hand at Yuno. He was holding a revolver.

"Yuno-san, please calm down." He said cheerfully, measuring her reaction and looking down at the terrified Yukiteru. I'll set my gun down, and you behave yourself. Remember, I can snap this phone as easily as a twig. Even Amano knows what will happen then. So let's all take it easy. I promise not to break it if we can be civil."

"...Why?" Yuno demanded to know.

"Well, it's abundantly clear that Amano is ignorant of you, me, and well everyone else with these phones. Frankly, he's not a threat to me, I can kill him at any time without you protecting him. You're the threat to me, and it's not your phone I'm holding. I could easily kill Amano in this instant, but it wouldn't protect me from you. I don't intend to die just in order to kill one helpless victim. I intend to pass this test we've been issued!"

Yuki's bright blue eyes clouded in confusion, moving back and fourth between Gasai-san and Hiyama-sensei. He had no idea what was going on, it was as though they were speaking another language, but he definitely heard his teacher casually talking about killing him. He pushed desperately away from the two of them, each staring at the other; Gasai with murder in her eyes and Hiyama with cold confident control.

Takao flipped open Yuki's Random Diary, and began reading its contents. He dialed a number and punched send, causing his own phone to ring, and continued pouring over the data in the phone without bothering to quell the vibrating noise coming from his coat pocket.

"Interesting." Takao said coolly, smiling at Yuno. "He doesn't have your number. I thought the two of you were a-"

"Shut up!" Yuno screamed, beginning to cry with humiliation. "I'll kill you if you say another word!"

"Yuno-san, I think you're going to have to come clean with your boyfriend there no matter what, after this." Takao said paternally, with hidden daggers in every word driving into Yuno's soul.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this!" Yuno said bitterly, the tears dropping from her eyes to the floor. "You ruined everything!"

"Nonsense, I brought the two of you together." Takao said. He looked over to Yuki. "Amano, did you know that I came to your house last night to kill you? Yuno-san saved your life."

Yuki was standing up, the direness of the scene playing out before him starting to outweigh his utter bewilderment. "W-what's going on, I don't understan-"

"Yukkii," Yuno said tearfully, "Please go out into the hallway, I'll get your phone back for you. I promise!"

Yuno looked up at Yuki, with a river of tears streaming down her face, smiling pathetically at him.

"No need, I'll give it back right now. Just send a message to my phone. Here's the number." Takao explained, setting Yuki's phone down on his desk and sliding a piece of paper to Yuno. Yuno, shaking with sadness and rage, took an inordinate amount of time to punch in the numbers from behind blurry teared up eyes. Finally, Takao's phone buzzed with another received call. Takao nodded, picked up his gun, and thrust his foot out behind him into his office door.

He backed away from Yuki's phone and into his office, and Yuno grabbed it. She ran to Yuki, seized him by the arm, and practically dragged him from the classroom in full retreat. Inside his office, Takao's heart was racing from the fear that girl put into him. One wrong word and she could have gone berserk on him, but he had gotten the intel he needed. The stage was set for his plan, and his life as a fugitive would be sealed when Yuno sent her incriminating evidence to the police any second now. He took two phones out of his pocket, and began transferring over the numbers from his received calls into his other phone, the Murder Diary. His work phone would be useless to him once the police could track it. He discarded it unceremoniously amongst the paperwork of his office, and left for his safe house. For the first time in years, he felt like a weight was lifted from his soul. He was a free man at last.

* * *

Minene used to sweat bullets when she made her bombs, no matter how many times she did it. Her diary made it much safer and far less nerve-wracking. She preferred the more dangerous liquid based bombs, because they were more convenient to produce on the fly, and she was always moving. Solid fuels were more stable and compact, but hard to mass produce on short notice. Ever since the ethno-religious conflict that had killed her parents, she had been fighting. Though she despised the senseless violence of religion, she knew it was only an excuse for people to kill each other. She, too, only needed an excuse. It turned out there was a god, and he derived sick pleasure from watching Humans suffer. Now he wanted her to fight some more. Instead of Imams and Priests, she would be killing other agents of God; other diary owners.

"Maybe instead of a shark, I am a mantis in a jar, pitted against other insects for your amusement?" Minene mused aloud. "I always knew that if there was a god he was a wicked child."

She added the diesel fuel to the hydrogen peroxide solutions waiting in used aluminum paint cans, and she gently tapped in the caps with remote detonators soldered to the inside. On the outsides, thick viscous glue had fastened thousands of dense sharp metal screws and other shrapnel to each face of the aluminum. They were ready to go.

She cried out when her phone rang. The ring was dull low pitched pulses, the default. No one had ever called this phone, and her blood had gone cold. How could anyone have gotten her number? After six rings, she hesitantly answered the call, bringing it to her ear and saying nothing.

"Minene-san." Takao said heavily on the other end of the line without waiting for an answer. "What are you wearing?"

"That'll be funny on your epitaph!" She roared, and then her tone became demanding. "Tell me who this is so I know who to kill!"

"Minene, I'm hurt. Was our playtime the other night simply a fling for you?" Takao asked.

"Oh, it's Kato Tomohiro." Minene taunted. "I was almost worried for a minute. But, hey, maybe you're not really a mass murderer type. You go after the girls, right? Sexually depraved, are you? What sorts of things do you do to them?"

Takao laughed angrily. "You know how to push my buttons, Minene-san. But I am an honorable warrior, Minene. I am pure. I am fighting against the rot of this world, not contributing to it; but that is not what I called you to talk about. I have information for you."

"I hate people like you, egotistical zealots who can't even be honest with themselves about their killing. You're just a self-important holier-than-thou crusader and I've killed dozens like you. I don't need excuses for the lives I take, but you're crippled by your own neurosis. I'm telling you right now, you're not special in the least. Now, the only information I want from you is how you got my number!" Minene shouted. He was pushing her buttons too. No matter how deluded he was, it was disastrous that he had acquired her number.

"You're not too bright, are you, Minene-san?" Takao asked. "You detonate your bombs with cell phones. And who captured your last stash of bombs?"

Minene was finally silent on the other end of the line.

"It would be quite unfortunate if the police got a hold of your number, wouldn't it, Minene-san? Now that I finally have some respect out of you, I'll give you a gift. You already know about the cop oracle, I assume, but I'm going to text you two more numbers. They are for two more oracles - students at Sakurami Middle School - and you're going to kill them for me tomorrow."

"Like hell I am, hand-eater!" She shouted.

"Then, I shall forward your number to the police, and let you spend the next 48 hours fleeing from a constant police search until you finally collapse and are arrested. You know as well as I do that you cannot abandon your phone." Takao retorted, pausing for her response.

"Failure..." Minene breathed, the air going out of her slowly. One little mistake, and everything could end for you. That was how it was when you were at war with the world; at war with god himself. "I can do the same with your number!"

"Oh, Minene-san." Takao said disapprovingly. "I paid a visit to another one of my students this evening, I'm calling from her phone. I'll be disposing of it shortly so we'll have to make this relatively brief. You know how that cop is with detecting crimes. What I am proposing here is not pure extortion. We both have similar problems. We want the cop dead. But first, I want you to take care of another of my problems by killing my students. It should be an easy task for you as long as you're armed. Don't underestimate the girl, though, she is... abnormal."

Minene was gritting her teeth. If only she had... No, she wouldn't live in the past with regrets. It was utterly pointless to indulge in such frivolities. This serial killer had her, and she had to comply. She tried feebly to jab him on something, but even as she spoke the words it seemed to fall flat. "How's your hearing?"

"Tomorrow, Minene-san. Kill them. Our bargain is solid. Once the cop is dead it won't matter who has your number, and I have every reason to work with you until that goal is achieved. We could both use an ally right now. If they're not killed tomorrow, though, I will pass along your number. By the way, the cop is Captain Kurusu Keigo. His diary seems to show him the information of future police investigations, and that can be used against him. If you're clever, that is. I hope you're clever, Minene-san. I'll be in touch."

"Hey! Wait a min-" Minene began to shout, and she heard the click. She became disoriented, and winced her eyes as the world seemed to spin beneath her.

Minene was no longer in the storage unit. She was somewhere far away, standing in a vast open area with eleven other people and Deus Ex Machina, the God of Time and Space who had arranged this all. Deus, the wicked child himself. Across the way on the vast roundtable stood the figure she recognized as the serial killer, though he was shrouded in an obfuscating aura. The twelve of the 'players' each occupied a space like an hour on a clock. It was far fewer enemies than Minene had expected, and that was much welcome news after the devastating blow the serial killer had just dealt her with his blackmail.

* * *

"The last straggling player in our game has just recently been made aware of the identity of at least one other diary owner!" Deus's godly and booming voice announced. His colossal eagle-like face leaned forward with excitement, and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly, savoring the moment. "We can finally commence our first meeting!"


	4. Takao and the God

"The last straggling player in our game has just recently been made aware of the identity of at least one other diary owner!" Deus's godly and booming voice announced. His colossal eagle-like face leaned forward with excitement, and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly, savoring the moment. "We can finally commence our first meeting!"

Takao stood in the Causality Cathedral at his mark, surrounded by the eleven other players of the survival game, everyone shrouded in an ethereal aura that obfuscated everyone's identities from one another. Deus Ex Machina was an imaginary god that Takao had concocted, or so he had thought. Apparently he had allowed himself to be 'invented' by every single other player present. Above Takao's head was written "The 3rd," and every other player had a similar pseudonym appointed them by Deus.

Takao had already unveiled nearly half the players in the few days since the start of the game. To his left was "The 4th," the oracle cop, Kurusu Keigo. The cop was glaring at him, and both were unveiled to each other. He was an unkempt, middle aged man with a tired and serious face. His eyes were like fresh green olives or a patina-rusted faucet. They were angry eyes, Takao decided. Yuno had made good on her threat, and Keigo now was aware of Takao's identity as the Sakurami City Butcher. It had been a stupid killer's moniker anyway, with no creativity. He tilted his head back with a smile as if to say to Keigo, "What can one do?"

To his right he could see Gasai Yuno, The 2nd, and then Amano Yukitero, The 1st. Then there was Uryuu Minene across the room, labelled The 9th, whose purple eyes were also glaring at him. Takao felt so popular with four people staring daggers into him. It made him feel strong; powerful. He waved merrily to The 9th, and she looked as if he had reached across the room and punched into her stomach. She took a single step back in surprise. Minene knew that she could not afford to rouse his wrath.

Deus Ex Machina, the strangely shaped larger-than-life god, surveyed the players for a moment. Already, the causality continuum had been devastated by an unexpected move from The 3rd. Additionally, The 3rd had unveiled the most other players, and tipped The 9th off to the identity of the 4th, allowing the first meeting to be held. It had been quite an impressive start for someone he had not expected much utility from.

Aside from Takao and those he had uncovered, there was The 5th, an orange haired and energetic child. He was mutually acquainted with The 6th, the priestess of a cult attended by his parents. He knew her because she was publicly known to be an oracle by the cultists, and she knew of him from the nature of her diary which reported the observations of her cultists, naturally including his parents. The visually impaired, heavily robed priestess looked down at the rosy cheeked boy to her right. Even though he was not shrouded from her, she could barely see the green of his clothing. He appeared to be looking about with enthusiasm at the vast space he was in. The 6th scolded herself for being envious of his sight in the presence of God, and sighed.

Further along in the line were The 7th and The 8th, who were another mutually aware pair. The 8th was the nurturing yet matriarchal director of the orphanage in which the muscular brawler 7th had grown to his adulthood. Neither acknowledged the other as they observed the Causality Cathedral's splendor. It seemed to Deus that the two of them had already formed an alliance and were playing it cool.

10th was a mustachioed man of refinement, standing perfectly erect as he beheld the misty hues of the room and the giant statuesque God. The only player he had uncovered had been The 4th, as the kennel he owned trained professional dogs for the police force, and his strange diary had reported clues from those dogs that a certain police captain was also unusually prescient regarding the whereabouts of criminals. It seemed apparent by the way 4th could not meet his eyes that his identity was not mutually known by the cop. The 10th smiled mischievously, wondering how many times that police officer had looked through one way glass at his own suspects. It was an exquisite, marvelous feeling.

11th, the Mayor, was also aware of 4th. The police officer on the payroll of the city had made no effort to conceal his powers as he ruthlessly chased the two criminals with the highest profiles. 11th was not interested in him, however. The imposing yet aged man was scanning the room discerningly. He was only interested in one player, but had not yet discovered their identity, not even by number or silhouette. The skull-cap wearing bespectacled man would have to wait until he had that information before he would risk making any serious moves.

And finally, there was The 12th. Deus liked him, and felt an affinity for the eccentric deaf man. With his usual flair, he had showed up at the meeting in a costume consisting of a giant spherical mask with a red eye painted on its front. It seemed fitting that he would put so much effort into something that none of the other players could see, and remain out of the loop that his disguise was unnecessary without being able to see the other players' reactions or the foggy auras veiling other players' identities. Deus chuckled sagely and clasped his gigantic bony hands together.

"Welcome, players, to the Survival Game!" Deus spoke, after observing each one in turn. "All of you have noticed by now that you are in possession of a miraculous artifact that reveals to you the future, and all of you have finally discovered the identity of another player in this game. I'll be short: the goal of this game is to kill all remaining players within three months. By that time, all but one of you will be dead."

He waited for the shouts and outbursts from several players to die down, and then continued. His deep, authoritative voice could easily drown them out, but this was all part of the play.

"When only one person remains alive, that person will become the new God of this universe, able to reshape it to their liking. If no player is chosen, then the universe will be utterly nullified. All past, present, and future will cease to exist. The only way to ensure your own life is to kill; to kill and to win." Deus declared. His eyes narrowed dangerously. "If any of you have any morality remaining within you, I advise you to discard it now."

Takao could not believe his damaged ears. A game? Abandon morals? God was not on his side after all. What's more, it wasn't even a test. It was a sport, it was entertainment. It was _cheap. _There was not even a guarantee that the winner would in fact be rewarded. He was disgusted, and the cathedral floor seemed to be made of jelly. The hardened killer sank to his knees, visibly shaken before all the other contestants. The 4th looked down on his loss of spine and spit on the ground.

"What's the matter, Hiyama?" Keigo called, rubbing his stubble. "Did you hear something that didn't agree with you? I can only speculate, really, but a textbook psychopath like you - did your grandiose delusions get shattered by coming face to face with the true God or something?"

Takao caught his breath, found his footing, and stood defiantly up, lifting his sword and pointing it at Keigo. He could no longer maintain a facade of control, his voice was crazed and panicked, but he couldn't help himself. All he could feel was the heat on his face. "You, the cop who can see all crimes, are Captain Kurusu Keigo!" He screamed wretchedly, before spinning to his right. "You two are Gasai Yuno and Amano Yukiteru, in attendance at Sakurami Middle School! The girl is the more able player, but the boy has the stronger diary - it predicts everything around him in highly frequent intervals!"

He fell back to the ground, completely out of control, gasping for air. He had wanted to spill their identities to the other players, but he knew what was coming next. Keigo's grizzled voice called out, calm and rational in juxtaposition to Takao's melt-down.

"And you are Hiyama Takao, serial killer and former teacher at Sakurami Middle School. And you will be getting taken into custody very shortly, I assure you!" Keigo shouted with all the condemnation he could muster. Takao, however, had found what he needed in Keigo's words - something to grasp onto.

"You won't find me, 4th, I've gone ghost on the world, but you heard the God. We all have to become murderers now. How long do you reckon it will take for someone to come looking for you after they can't find me? I have more practice as a killer! All three of you will perish!" Takao roared, drawing himself up for a second time. He felt he could keep it together this time, though his hands were trembling. "Deus! Why did you put two players in my class and put a player in the game who could detect my every move? That was unfair!"

"I am a god! How do you intend to question me with such a demanding tone?" Deus boomed imperiously. Deus had stood up, as tall as a silo, his long arm thrust down with a bony finger extended accusingly at Takao. This time Takao stood firm; he was no longer even shaken. "What about my world ever gave you the impression that I was a fair deity? You have all suffered the slings and arrows of it. You are all broken dolls, and I will be taking one last bit of entertainment out of you before I perish from this world!"

Minene laughed hysterically as her form began to flicker and fade away. "And you're the wicked child who broke us, aren't you Deus! You're a bully on an anthill with a magnifying glass! The god is right, though, killer; suck it up! Life's not fair! A universe with a god in it only makes sense if he's malevolent! And the one with the most experience killing here isn't you, it's me!"

"So that's how it is." Said 6th bitterly with a toss of her long hair, vanishing from the cathedral as well. Deus sat back down as the players were dismissed one at a time.

"Broken dolls!" 5th cried out next in his young voice, as though echoing a phrase that he didn't understand.

The 10th tutted. "What a vulgar show."

"I will find you, Hiyama-san~!" The 12th's silhouette yelled, making a heart shape with his shadowy hands. "I will punish you, for your own sake!"

"I can't believe I looked up to you." The 1st said. He, too, blinked out of existence like each of the others after their parting words.

The 2nd pointed a blade at Takao. "Don't come near us ever again if you know what's good for you."

With that, Takao was out of the Cathedral, back in the car, driving. He was too numb to be shaken any more. The universe was aligned against him after all. What was more, God was just as evil as everyone said Takao was. He had to persevere, though, so he sent the text to Minene containing the information he had extracted from his unfortunate pupil. It was everything about The 1st and 2nd that he could torture out of the poor girl before her body quit. Hopefully Minene-san would find it useful information. Even if he had been humiliated in that meeting, she still had to obey.

He opened his car door and dropped the stolen phone out onto the pavement shooting past, and felt it crunch beneath the left rear tire.

Back in the Cathedral, only Deus and his assistant, Murmur, remained. She was a child-sized demon with mocha toned skin and long lilac hair run through an enormous heart emblazoned hair bead. Murmur leaned back in a satisfying stretch, while floating near Deus's eye level, as though reclining on a comfortable invisible sofa. Her long impish tail whipped lazily one way, and then the other. She peered at Deus as though they were both in on a funny secret.

"That went well!" Her squeaky voice summarized. Deus chuckled with satisfaction.

"The 3rd is an interesting character, it seems, but I thought he would have died by now. What went wrong?"

Murmur put a smug look on her face and looked sidelong at her master. "Went wrong? This is a game whose outcome not even you can see! Is there really such a thing as 'going wrong?'"

"Murmur." Deus growled. He knew she was to blame. "Tell me or you won't eat for three months!"

"Okay! Okay!" She cried, her face going blue from the thought of being deprived of her scrumptious delights for even a day. "The 3rd was troublesome, he kept breaking his phone when he discovered its properties! In order to get the game in play, I thought I could prevent him from completely dying by causing his soul to enter stasis whenever he had an outburst, so I could restore him and try again!"

Deus lifted his giant hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his long beak-like nose.

"And, well, it seems there was some sort of _feedback _during his time in soul form. I stored the soul in the causality continuum itself, so somehow he was able to foresee his death on a subconscious level! But don't worry, Deus! I've already fixed the problem, and 3rd is completely on his own now!"

Deus could only continue his galactic facepalm in response, while shaking his head at his servant's shenanigans.

* * *

"Heeyah! Yah!" mimed Hirasaka Yomotsu, The 12th, kicking the air like a Jujutsu master striking at the joints of an invisible opponent. "I will not give in to evil! I will punish them! First Hiyama-san! Then the evil god! I will win the game, and bring justice to the world! Hiyaya ta~!"


	5. Takao and the Vigilante

"Heeyah! Yah!" mimed Hirasaka Yomotsu, The 12th, kicking the air like a Jujutsu master striking at the joints of an invisible opponent. "I will not give in to evil! I will punish them! First Hiyama-san! Then the evil god! I will win the game, and bring justice to the world! Hiyaya ta~!"

The masked blind man listened to his audio diary for an instant to regain his bearings after being dismissed from the Causality Cathedral. It seemed that time stopped completely in the real world while they were in that imaginary space. The nature of the Cathedral seemed to be a spiritual state of mind rather than any physical location.

He had been just about ready to act when he had been whisked away to that heavenly realm.

"Heavenly? No! God is a villain who must be disenthroned! Deposed! That place is a purgatory at best. Yes!" Yomotsu called out to no one, launching himself forward from his hiding spot behind the dumpster of an alleyway, littered with paper and trash caked onto the pavement by rains long since dried up.

Whatever the spiritual status of the Cathedral, the situation here in reality had not escaped him during his time away. It seemed that only mere seconds had been lost, and only to the necessary reorientation of his mind after being transported to and fro.

His eyes could see nothing, but his diary allowed him to 'see' so much more than any normal person. Even through the brick exterior of the alleyway Yomotsu was aware that there were four targets within the store. He had followed three men from the cult to this place. It was racketeering for the organized crime syndicate of the Omekata Cult. The cult was a mere front for all kinds of crimes from the petty money gathering operations to serious ones such as rape, torture, and murder.

Yomotsu rounded the corner, and pushed open the door.

"We're closed." Said a thuggish voice. "Can't you read the s-"

The voice stopped, reacting to Yomotsu's outlandish costume.

"Get this retard out of here." The voice ordered. Two pairs of footsteps obliged, moving towards him. His diary had given him instructions for what moves would subdue his obstacles already. Two sets of hands flanked him, each opponent putting one firm hand on his shoulder, and the other grabbing his wrist.

First, a headbutt. He slammed his forehead into the bridge of the nose of his first opponent, feeling the man's expensive sunshades shatter. A reaction from the man on his left: he was going to try to break Yomotsu's arm with his hold. Yomotsu brought his heel into the side of his enemy's knee, causing it to buckle, and then shifted his weight to turn with the twist of his arm, wrenching it free with little injury to himself and compromising the enemy's stance. Yomotsu continued spinning, bringing his leg all the way around his body and driving it into the stomach of his attacker, knocking him backwards into the leader of the trio who had given the order.

"Foolish villains!" Yomotsu shouted triumphantly, slamming his elbow into the already broken nose of the man with the shattered sunglasses on his right, causing him to fall down clutching the gushing flow of blood unleashed by the hideous attack. "The wicked cannot defeat the righteous!"

He produced a roll of duct tape from his belt, and wrapped it around the sunshade goon's wrists and ankles as the leader of the bunch struggled beneath the unconscious man who had been kicked into him.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you just made the biggest fuck up of your life." He threatened, standing up. Yomotsu's diary was spilling fourth a new moveset with which to defeat both the thug leader and the shopkeeper who had produced a machete from beneath the counter and joined the thug.

"I implore you not to side with this villain, shopkeep!" Yomotsu warned with a wag of his finger. "He was just taking protection money from you, do not also give him your pride and choose subservience or you will feel not only the shame of your actions but also regret when you taste justice at my righteous hands!"

"I didn't ask for your help, you freak. This is how things have been done here for decades. I want you to leave my store now, or I'm going to cut you up as a trespasser, got it?"

Yomotsu raised his fists in a battle stance, and the thug leader charged him with heavy footfalls. The blind vigilante caught the fist as it thrust towards him, and led it forwards while spinning out of its line of attack and planting his hand on the man's back. He crouched low, and then pushed against the ground to thrust all the energy his body could produce into the man's back, propelling him straight through the glass door of the shop and into a bleeding heap on the sidewalk. From behind, the shopkeeper had rushed him with his sword and was bringing it down towards Yomotsu's back, but the red masked hero's previous pounce carried him out of the swipe's arc. Yomotsu rolled forward and leapt to his feet, bringing his foot up in a wide trajectory and planting it firmly into the jaw of the final opponent.

As the sword clattered to the hard tile floor, Yomotsu let out a victory cry.

"I will punish _all _the villains!" He laughed, getting his duct tape and binding the other two thugs. One by one, he loaded their twitching, battered bodies into the back of a van waiting in the alleyway, and he drove off leaving the shopkeeper in the wreckage of his store.

* * *

"30 KPH." Said a synthetic female voice in a monotone. The blind man operating the vehicle could have fooled anyone, he was stopping perfectly on the line at every intersection, braking for cars in front of him, avoiding cyclists, making model turns, and navigating the busy narrow streets of Sakurami City as expertly as any sighted person. The lacerated, blood caked face of the thug leader winced, and he came to with a groan. A moment passed, and he began to speak.

"L-Listen, it's not too late to fix things. Stop this car, let us out and free us, and I'll tell-" He said.

"You'll tell your priestess what, exactly? How your face got cut up? How you and your men were defeated? Do you think the shopkeeper welcomes your protection after what you just let happen to his store?" Asked Yomotsu with glee. His pointed questions seemed to stagger the thug leader. "Do you think you'll still have a place in the organization after letting the cult's reputation for protection get bruised?"

"Wh-which gang are you with?"

"Whaat? I am no crude criminal such as yourself! I am a warrior of justice! Justice!" Yomotsu protested angrily. "You are being punished for your sins! You have many sins to atone for!"

"Buddy, cut the shit. You sound like a moron."

"Then, let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you: Saijo-san. The system has been too lenient with you! You've been in the Sakurami City Correctional Detention Facility four times, spending half of your adult life in the system! You are a criminal down to your bones, but they keep letting you out. The only thing you do with your life is hurt and victimize people. However, you have a family now, do you not?"

"Are you threatening them, you sanctimonious piece of-"

"I already told you, Saijo-san, I am an agent of justice, not a criminal like you! But if you go back to jail, how will you provide for them? I have evidence on you and your men that is enough to prosecute you on. With your former convictions, you'll be locked away for years. Do you think your wife's eyes will wander while you're away?" Yomotsu asked, giggling. Saijo barred his teeth with contempt, but he said nothing. The criminal was too busy wiggling his way towards the inside wall of the van, and worming his way into an upright position. If he could just inch his way forward, he might be able to crash the vehicle and make an escape.

"I could be persuaded to destroy my evidence of your extortions and forget the names of those who would testify against you. In addition, I could make you very powerful as a reward for helping me." Yomotsu said coolly, pulling into his garage and stopping when the tennis ball hanging from the ceiling thudded against his windshield. "However... you will have to betray the Omekata cult."

"I would never betray the Sacred Eye!" insisted Saijo, inching forward on his knees towards the masked vigilante. Yomotsu grabbed a large bottle of saline from the passenger side seat, pointed it at Saijo, and squirted several simultaneous streams of the liquid at his bloody face, irrigating his facial lacerations and washing away caked on blood. Saijo fell backwards, shouting at the sting and coughing in impotent protest.

"You served in the defense force before you began your life of crime, yes?" Yomotsu asked nonchalantly, beginning to drag his prisoners out of the van and onto the floor in a neat row. "Yes, I know all about you, Saijo-san. You are important to my plan. You're not a good person, but you've never murdered anyone. I think you will make a better leader for the cult. Tell me what you think of the current leader."

"Priestess Kasugano is an oracle of God! I wouldn't oppose her; I've seen her power for myself." Saijo said.

"Well, as a military man, what would you say happens to a sitting target?" Yomotsu retorted. Saijo was silent. "That's right, Saijo-san. It gets obliterated. Tsubaki Kasugano is already doomed, because she will never leave the premises of her compound. If it's not us who does it, it will be someone else. The cult is in very serious danger of dying along with her. If you care about the cult, you will take it over. You will take Kasugano's scroll for yourself, and then _you _will be the one with the power of God."

Saijo shook his head, struggling in vain with his restraints. "You're insane."

"You will help me. Prison, the destruction of the cult, and the dissolution of your family await you if you refuse. Power, security, and redemption await you if you agree." Yomotsu said simply. "You have a position of power in the cult. You will wait for my signal, and then you and your men will seize control of the cult for your own. It is the only way to protect everything you value in this world. The girl is a mystic, she believes in silly things. We can even assure your security in the event of failure by fabricating a story about 'hypnosis.' Siding with me is the foolproof option."

Yomotsu began shackling the three men to the bare wall of his garage. "Think it over, Saijo-san. I've got things to do, I'll be back in about 12 hours to hear your answer."

The man began to reply again, but Yomotsu simply slipped a ballgag into his mouth, and left him to his thoughts.

Inside his house, Yomotsu took off his mask. His dusty brown hair partially hid the body of a black headset attached very sturdily to his ears, through which his diary poured out its future information. Once, it had been a diary for training his move sets and acrobatics in solitude, painstakingly entered and practiced. Now, the movesets were compiled automatically, in real time, for everything around him. Despite his visual handicap, he was by far the most prescient in battle, and nearly impossible to defeat in hand to hand combat.

He was making his preparations for the destruction of the Omekata cult, but it was a large and powerful organization, and it would take a lot of time to bring everything together for its total destruction. Of course, the diary he had promised Saijo would not work once Tsubaki was dead, but Saijo was a stupid man and a two-bit thug. Someone in and out of prison who would never be able to manage an entire crime syndicate. The Omekata cult was pure evil, with ultraviolent initiation rites involving rape and murder. Once his plan systematically dismantled the cult, his life would finally have value.

Yomotsu walked into his dark livingroom, emblazoned with posters and sentai merchandise which his glaucose, clouded gray eyes could not appreciate. The state appointed aid had even asked him why he wanted posters to decorate his home while putting them up for Yomotsu. The nerve. As if he could never have a sighted person in his home who could enjoy them. He hated his condition not for how it limited himself, but for how it made others treat him. He was a valueless thing, a sympathetic helpless leech. No matter what his attitude or his own self-esteem was, his value to others would never take that into account. To society, he would always be its burden. People usually didn't say it, but to them he was the same as a loser. As a hero, however, they would have to recognize his greatness. If he saved one life, his life would gain value by default. And when he destroyed this murder cult, he would be saving dozens or even hundreds of lives, and no one would ever be able to take that away from him.

* * *

Takao woke up in pitch darkness. The only light was the orange glow of a space heater, but it was enough to find the light switch with. Intense whitish blue light instantly flooded the cramped space with ample illumination. It was his safehouse; two shipping containers in a small run down fishing wharf. Ground level was the living quarters, and above were his utilities. The setup was simple, just a recliner to sleep in, a space heater, some rat-proof food storage, and insulation on the walls. Shipping containers were not optimal for living in, and would be even worse once the summer heat came, but he could survive here indefinitely.

He had spent years planning this. He had acquired and built up a fake identity, developed a controlling interest in the fishing company, sold most of its boats and equipment piecemeal, and actually turned a small profit by liquidating it. Of course, he had destroyed the livelihoods of the 9 employees it once had, but that was hardly his problem. He and the family selling out had been satisfied with their gains. The taxes he paid on the faded asphalt lot were actually about the same as he had been paying for his house, since there was no mortgage to worry about. It was his very own piece of the water front, cheap as free. He would rent the waterfront out eventually, allowing the lessees to use the building and docks while his little corner with the shipping containers remained his own. It was a wonderfully invisible arrangement for a fugitive.

Today was the day he would finally kill one of the players of this 'game.' He stood and went to the mirror. Gone was his long, rusty red hair. He had now black hair cut into a short style to blend in with the crowd. Next to the mirror was a police rifle, but Takao was not yet skilled enough in marksmanship, so that weapon would have to wait. Today he had another date with Minene-san, and his revolver and blade would do. Takao smiled cheesily at the mirror, looking handsome. Minene seemed like a second-date kind of girl.

Opening the heavy latch, he stepped out into the morning sun. The revolver was holstered beneath a black business jacket, and he looked like any other suit-and-tie businessman of Sakurami City.

* * *

When he arrived at his destination, it had already begun. He peered through the telescope from the rooftop of a department store chain's modest headquarters, and he could see the billowing smoke and concrete debris rising from Sakurami Middle School. As expected, Minene had complied to his demands. Human beings hated being threatened into anything, but when they had no alternatives, they always gave in. Manipulation was better, but Takao had never been exceptionally talented at the social side of things.

Surrounding the school were legions of law enforcement. He could even see The 4th standing by a command vehicle smoking leisurely. On rooftops closer to the action he could see snipers getting into position to take Minene out. The thought occurred to him that if he had his own high powered rifle, he could probably take 4th out right now before his diary had a chance to warn him.

"Missed opportunities, Fourth! Maybe soon, though." Takao said laughingly to himself. Overhead he could see helicopters, and every once in a while there would be a flash of a rising orange explosion in the school, followed shortly by the sound it produced. Minene-san sure looked to be giving them hell. Just then, something caught his eye. Far below, a dark shape was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, making his way closer and closer to the police blockade. Takao thought back to the Causality Cathedral. "The Twelfth?"

He had only been visible in silhouette, but it was such a unique one that he did not feel he was mistaken. A large spherical head, and a tiny lithe body, leaping like a ninja from one building to the next. Takao had no idea how to react to a diary owner whose power, skill, and personality were unknowns for him. Suddenly, the shape stopped midrun, and turned, directly towards Takao. Had he been seen? It was impossible! Yet the giant red eye of his spherical head was pointed directly at him, there could be no mistaking it. Slowly, the man raised his hands and made a heart shape at him.

Takao angrily slapped the telescope away from his eye and stood up straight in furious response. Just what kind of diary did this weirdo have?

It didn't take long for The Twelfth to parkour himself to Takao's location. Takao's defensive personality was telling him to run, but he tried to ignore the fear. He had to find out who this freakshow was and what he was capable of. He slid his office jacket off, revealing the holster for his pistol and the large sword-like blade sheathed flat against his spine. The power ranger leapt up to the top of the fence on the roof like a cat, and then flipped down, standing before Takao triumphantly.

"I found you, Hiyama-san!"

"Just how did you? I could barely even see you through my telescope. No body's eyes are that good!" Takao responded. He would press him with dialogue and trick him into giving something away. If it failed, he still had his gun - this idiot looked to be completely unarmed.

"Right you are! It was not my eyes, but Sixth's diary!" Yomotsu declared. Takao reflexively scanned the rooftops for a second diary owner, but saw nothing. What was he babbling about? "She is a villain like you, and I have infiltrated her Cult with minions of my own! All of her predictions are known to me, and one such prediction revealed that in the future a cultist would report your presence here! Allowing me to intercept you! Isn't that awesome?!"

Takao winced trying to follow the logic of what the man was saying. He didn't know anything about this Sixth, but he doubted he would get much more of an explanation. The man looked eager to duel, lowering himself down in a dramatic pose and touching the asphalt of the roofing like a track star taking his mark.

"So you intend to kill me here, Twelfth?" Takao asked, taking his handgun out and pointing it at the costumed man one handedly. With his other hand he took out his diary and peeked at it. "How will a hero like you rationalize killing people who aren't villains, when you run out of convenient targets like me? What about those two students? 1st and 2nd - they might be filth but not even I would describe them as villains."

"You said it yourself! Everyone will become murderers in this game! I only have to wait for them to become villains, and then they will be punished!" he answered, just then another explosion at the school bathed them in light. Yomotsu was startled when the sound of the bomb hit, and he pounced into action, running at Takao.

Takao fired the revolver, but Yomotsu leaped to the side and rolled just as the hammer was pulled back and released. Takao's eyes narrowed, and he was calculating. There was no time for strategy, but he knew firing his gun again would be useless. He had to do something unexpected. He slipped off a shoe, then kicked it at his assailant.

_Whap!_

Takao couldn't believe it. He had actually physically bested an opponent for once, for the first time in days. The red fighter flailed about in surprise as the shoe connected with his face, and weaved off to the side. Takao shot again, with the pistol, and it almost hit him. The bullet ripped through a roll of duct tape fastened to his belt, and put the fear into him. Everything was happening so fast, but Takao grinned when Yomotsu let out a scream and jumped back up onto the fence to flee.

_**~Zruu~**_

The future changed, as the hunter became the hunted. Takao raised his gun and fired the other three shots from his five round cylinder as his prey did a flying flip in sheer terror from the tall building. Takao jumped up against the fence, clutching its links in order to peer down over the precipice of the building. Amazingly, the agile man had not fallen into a puddle in the street below, but had landed on the ledge below. Takao jumped back down, there was no way he could match this guy's prowess at death defying acrobatics, but that didn't mean he couldn't pursue in his own way. He popped out the cylinder, spilling the spent casings to the roof and sliding in a new moon clip of cartridges.

**4/24 - 9:10:40 AM [Fumaya Hyakkaten HQ]**

**Repelled The Twelfth using my gun. Went down two flights of stairs, caught The Twelfth trying to enter through a window.**

Takao holstered the weapon and retrieved his shoe and jacket. Casually, he went back into the building. Down two flights of stairs, and he entered the board room where The Twelfth was trying to enter just as predicted. Takao stood in the doorway, but the man seemed utterly undeterred. The window gently swung open to the Twelfth's prying fingers, and a gust of cold air flooded the room. This seemed to confirm Takao's earlier suspicion.

"So." Takao said flatly. He was in control, he would keep this enemy afraid. Yomotsu jumped once again in terror, reacting only to the sound. It was true; he could not see! Takao couldn't believe it, the way this masked lunatic jumped around so ably and he was a blind as a bat. "Why don't you take that stupid mask off so you can see better? Or... Would it not make a difference either way?"

Yomotsu froze, and was silent. Takao took out his gun once again.

"I first noticed from the slight delay in your reaction to the explosion. You only reacted to the sound." Takao explained. He fired. Yomotsu ably backflipped, the bullet passing underneath him. Takao shook his head in amazement as the fluid movement both dodged a bullet and carried him back out onto the ledge, where he took cover out of Takao's line of sight. The man's diary was incredible. Takao decided to call out and tell him so, as office workers began to gather around the board room, watching in silent awe the scene that was unfolding. "Your diary must be unbelievably granular, to guide a blind man so accurately. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel like you and I are quite similar."

Takao slid his jacket down his arms a few inches, reached back and pulled out his sword as he moved towards the window to finish off The Twelfth. "We're both crusaders; warriors. We're fighting towards a better world. Your diary, I think, is as offensively geared as my own."

Takao stepped out onto the ledge, leading defensively with his sword. Twelfth had already jumped down to the ledge below and Takao saw him round the corner. He could see small numbers of police leaving the scene of the nearby hostage situation, called towards him. Takao made his way out onto the ledge and rounded the corner as well, remaining one story above his quarry. He leaned out and fired down at Twelfth, who jumped out onto a window cleaning lift, causing it to sway, before immediately springing back in towards the ledge and behind cover, dodging the third round from Takao.

"But while I know I am a criminal, you see yourself as a hero. Your ideals are holding you back. Already I've made you compromise them. You are running from me; from a villain. I'm going to enjoy watching you sacrifice everything you believe in. You'll become a villain too!" Takao continued. He holstered his gun in order to take another look at his diary. He took his sword in both hands to avoid impaling himself, and leapt from the side of the building. Air rushed past him for an instant, and he landed hard on the swaying window cleaner's lift, falling to his knees. Takao had another clear shot of Twelfth, but he knew trying to shoot him was pointless by now. He would only be able to shoot the man if he was not prepared for it, like with the shoe. He had to catch the man's diary off guard. Instead, Takao ignored his diary's instructions to shoot. He took his sword by its tip, and threw it, spinning it sidelong at the blind man, hitting him in his leg. It wouldn't do much damage, but up here it didn't have to.

The Twelfth cried out, falling to his knees and nearly falling from the ledge with the sword as it clanged noisily downwards, hitting the triple paned windows several times on its journey to street level. A trickle of blood flowed from a gash in the man's calf, and Takao took out his pistol and shot twice more. Takao's jaw dropped as the wounded vigilante flung himself forwards onto his palms, rising into a handstand and dodging the bullets once more, before throwing himself through the window as it was shattered by the bullets.

"Mother... fucker!" Takao said breathlessly. He tucked the useless revolver away for the last time, with no more ammunition for it. Unarmed, it was now yet another fruitless murder attempt. He flipped open his phone and checked the time and his news feed. "That imbecile ruined my plan, too."

Takao's muscles ached as the adrenaline left him, he sighed slowly, and closed his eyes. He picked up the controls for the lift, and began lowering himself towards the ground. He would enter the building at the third floor, evade the police entering the building, go down to the sub-basement, and use the sewers to escape as he had planned to do anyway in case of a helicopter pursuit. Hopefully Uryuu Minene would succeed where he had once again proven unable to close the deal.

* * *

"Ja!" Minene shouted happily through her megaphone to the terrified students of the middle school, her eyes glinting with manic bliss. "All of you are my hostages!"


	6. Keigo and The Twelfth

"Ja!" Minene shouted happily through her megaphone to the terrified students of the middle school, her eyes glinting with manic bliss. "All of you are my hostages!"

Uryuu Minene beamed down at her tablet. From this, she would be able to detonate any of her IEDs or anti personnel bombs with a touch, and she could detonate any room in the massive building. It had taken all night to place the bombs, but now everything was going wonderfully.

"We will now begin moving students into the east wing. In five minutes the west wing will explode!" She warned. "When you hear the bell you will _walk_ to the other wing. The only ones who could have escaped are those on the ground floor and I'm afraid they're all quite dead! Do not attempt to use the stairwells or otherwise leave the building if you don't want to join them! There are motion sensitive bombs everywhere. Stay in the main corridor on your floor and walk to the other wing if you don't want to die. Teachers, keep your students from imitating heroics they saw on TV, this is the real world where you end up as a fine pink pile of shredded meat when you try such antics! Students in the east wing, push your desks to one side of the class to make room, you will have guests soon. Do not put them in the halls and constrict traffic or your fellow students will die when I re-arm the hallway bombs in ten minutes!"

She pressed a button, and the loud tone signaling a change of class sounded through the loudspeakers all over the small campus. Her directions were clear and thorough, if any of these brats died now, it would be wholly their own fault. Somewhere in the school, the two students were hiding. Once everyone was congregated she would be able to root them out and kill them. She had to play along for the time being, but she was working on a contingency to free herself from The Third's web, and it would be arriving any minute.

She took out a disposable phone and dialed The Fourth's number.

"Moshi moshi." Said a busy sounding voice after a couple of rings.

"Cheers, Fourth!" Minene said in greeting. "This is Uryuu Minene, and I have a package, addressed to you, arriving in precisely one minute. I want you to personally bring it into me or I will kill all of the students. I have herded them all into the east wing and will soon be detonating the evacuated west wing so don't get jumpy with your triggers when it happens. If my heart stops, all the bombs in the east wing also go off, and you will have the blood of a thousand dead children on your hands!"

"Uryuu, you psychopathic bitch, you killed all those kids!" Keigo answered furiously. Minene giggled.

"Oh, Fourth, I thought negotiators were supposed to play it cool and build a rapport! I admit, though, it's so charming how you can pretend to be angry! After all, we both met God himself." Minene replied, brushing out her deep violet hair-bunches absentmindedly as though this were her idea of flirting. "How much more clear can it be made for you? God is a monster, and he wants this. He enjoys it. People without diaries - are they even still people, Kurusu-san? Think about it, if they had free will, our diaries wouldn't be able to predict their actions. They're stuck carrying out their destinies, with no ability to change them; a_utomatons_! Only those of us with diaries can choose to act differently! Don't tell me the philosophical implications haven't occurred to you! Oh, look, here comes the parcel truck."

"I'm not here to discuss determinism with you! Building a rapport only matters with people who can be reasoned with. You're a psycho bitch, Uryuu, and you will answer for what you've done. What's in the box? A bomb? Gonna try to take me out? It won't work."

"Don't be so dramatic, Fourth!" Minene said dismissively with another giggle. "It's a new SIM card for my phone. Ordered it special, you could say. Oh, but, well, there _is_ a bomb in it, so I wouldn't tamper with it. Just bring it inside for Minene-sama! Don't worry, I need that card so I won't blow you up until I get it!"

"How very reassuring. But aren't there more convenient ways to do your home shopping, Uryuu?" Keigo asked, taking the package and entering through the front gate of the school. "Making hundreds of high explosive bombs and killing dozens of school kids seems like a lot of trouble. I would have bought you a new phone if you needed one, Uryuu."

Keigo, dressed in a blue suit with a black tie, approached Minene who stood in the middle of the courtyard, with one hand holding the package up and the other holding his phone to his head.

"Good boy, Kurusu-san!" Minene teased, as if he were a dog fetching the paper. She was enjoying her flirting and felt sad that she would soon have to kill him. "Now set it down and return to your adorable little siege."

"I'd like to check to make sure it's really just a SIM card." Keigo said. "Deactivate the bomb inside."

"Kurusu-san, naughty. Tell me you're not making demands!"

"Look," Keigo said, a hint of desperation in his drawling voice. "The tac team is already in place and rearing to go. You're a big name terrorist, and the government doesn't know about any sort of 'survival game,' and it's not like I can convince them. If it's really just a SIM card let me check; give me this so that I can try to prevent those kids from dying. You don't want to kill them, do you?"

"Ha ha ha!" Minene cackled hysterically. She pressed a button on her tablet, keeping her amethyst eyes locked on the soft brownish green of Keigo's for any hint of treachery. "Fourth, you just love your negotiations. Fine, it really is just a SIM card, but please don't think you can take advantage of me like I'm some scared cornered thug! You better make your tactics men understand just how hopeless their situation is. There is no one getting in or out of that building alive unless I allow it. They don't have to know about our little game to understand that much. Try real hard, Fourth, if you care about their lives; because I don't."

Keigo slowly opened the small box with a thick, calloused and nicotine-stained index finger. Inside was a pipe bomb and a manilla envelope. He opened the envelope and dropped a small golden chip into his palm. A SIM card for a phone.

"Now, this thing is important to you, so what happens if I smash-" Keigo began, but was cut short. Heat, shattered glass, and noise rained down on the court yard. Minene had detonated a classroom.

"There were at least fifty people in that room, Fourth. Probably a lot more." Minene said darkly, glaring at him. "I warned you not to take advantage. I thought you understood better. Shame on you. Now set the card down on the ground and go. Don't gamble with the lives of these kids any more for a worthless SIM card."

Keigo was numb. Uryuu was absolutely ruthless. He let the golden wafer drop from between his fingers to the dirt, cast the box aside, and walked back towards the front gate of the school.

_Click._

Keigo froze after walking about ten meters. He had stepped on a landmine. Minene was cackling again.

"Fourth! You're in the dead center of a minefield! I waited until you were in the middle and then I armed them! You've got about ten meters of certain death in every direction around you!" Minene shouted, smiling her shark smile.

She strutted in her flouncy gothic dress towards the tiny SIM card and picked it up. In faux-seductive style she pressed her full lips to the card and blew away the dust, looking at him across the deadly gulf with ardent, sultry eyes. She took her time popping the battery pack out of her phone and changing the cards out. It was the ultimate slap in the face to Keigo. His phone hadn't predicted the mines, because she hadn't armed them until he was in the middle of it, changing the future. This seemed to be the end, and he couldn't feel anything. He was completely, totally dead inside, watching the smoking hole in the side of the school where a classroom had been. Uryuu truly was a monster, to act in such a juvenile way only seconds after such a heinous mass-murder. He had to kill her, even if it cost him his own life. Even if it killed all of the students, he could not allow a psychopath like this to become the new God!

In a daze, he tore his side arm from its holster and aimed. Minene's large bedroom eyes were calmly waiting to meet his as he looked up. She was holding the pipe bomb from the package. As always, she was smiling jovially.

"Catch." She said in English with fatal coolness. She pitched it like a softball, and Keigo's pupils dilated and cold ran through his soul as the bomb sailed towards him with a mine underfoot. It was now or never. He took aim at the purple headed bitch, time seeming to go a tenth of a second at a time. He fired - once, twice, five times. He couldn't even hear the roar of each careful, steady shot - his world had gone completely mute.

* * *

Takao dropped into the water way. He had lost his sword and used up the only ammo he had for the gun, but instead he had a large shard of glass wrapped in rags, scavenged from the basement of the building. His Murder Diary told him Minene could be killed with this weapon, and that was what he intended to do after she killed his students for him.

It took some navigating, but with the help of his diary leading him towards his prey, he found the path to the correct manhole, and climbed up, exiting into a small shed like building. Outside the door he could hear the dozens of police crammed into the narrow Sakurami City streets. He had slipped just inside the perimeter the police had established, but he still had to make it into the school. He knew the quirks of the area, and was aware that he was behind the school building, which was shaped like a U. From his earlier rooftop recon, it appeared that Minene had cloistered herself in the courtyard beneath the two arms of the building. He would have to find a way through the bomb ridden structure and into the court yard.

First thing was first, he tucked the improvised weapon into his belt beneath his jacket, and he exited the shed. Terrified, screaming parents were being held back from the scene by police just on the other side of the road. Several APCs full of SWAT, and tons of squad cars packed the street bumper to bumper as the operation was prepared. Fortunately the perimeter was more concerned with keeping civilians out and Minene in than it was concerned with preventing someone already inside the perimeter from infiltrating further towards the scene. Still, Takao would not push his luck. In his suit, with his holstered police-issue revolver, Takao looked like a detective, but he was terrified of getting called on his bluff by a nosy cop, so he just kept walking, as confidently as he could feign, hoping not to be noticed among the chaotic flurry of police activity at the scene. Amazingly, it worked. His diary would not steer him wrong.

Takao slipped out of sight and into a green house neighboring the middle school. It was like walking into a wall of humidity and heat from the cool April morning air, and after being on a windy rooftop for nearly an hour, he appreciated the change. Through the foggy panes and foliage he could see the middle school windows. The ground floor looked to have been completely bombed out, making his entry a thing of ease.

He exited the greenhouse on the other side, ran across the short gap, and flung himself feet first through the blasted out window stained with carbon residue. Inside, the air was still thick with concrete particles, and he could see the mangled bodies of teenagers everywhere.

Near the exit of the classroom, a girl's torso had been flung naked clear from the rest of her body, and Takao began to breathe heavily, aroused by her fitting state.

"Serves you right, you slut!" he thought, his green eyes lustily staring at the gruesome corpse's large exposed breasts. What remained of her body had been covered in soot and grimy blood coagulated with settled concrete dust, and the gore from where she was torn asunder glistened in the dim light. Takao found it a lovely sight, but he continued on into the rubble of the hallway beyond. All of the charges here had already been detonated so he didn't have to worry about more. As long as he didn't enter unexploded areas, he would be safe.

It was time consuming to make his way through the broken slabs of concrete like jagged alien terrain, but it was the safest possible way, and soon he could see Minene through the ruined courtyard-facing classrooms. She, and Fourth as well. Takao crouched low and crept to the window to watch the scene.

Suddenly, the crack of five gunshots rang out, followed by an explosion, and there was smoke everywhere.

* * *

Yuno climbed laboriously up the broken ruins of the computer lab that had just detonated, and turned to help Yuki up as well. She had been getting to spend so much time with him since the day Hiyama-sensei had taken Yuki's phone, and despite the gravity of their situation, her heart felt as light as a feather. She took his wrist and leaned back, leveraging her body weight to pull Yuki up into the blasted out room, and onto her.

She smiled and gave a small laugh, breathing heavily, as Yuki realized his position and scrambled off of her embarrassedly.

"We should be safe here, Yuki!" Yuno intoned happily, still panting from exertion. "There are no bombs left in here so we can finally rest!"

Bodies were scattered everywhere. It was the classroom in the east wing that had been crammed full of students which the terrorist had detonated only a few moments earlier. The air was still choked with dust and debris particles, and it was a grotesque scene of carnage. From the collapsed ceiling, they had been able to climb up and take refuge finally. Minene had been ruthlessly clever with her bombs, but Yuno had finally figured it out. The Ninth had bombs in literally every room of the school, and she was able to track them by intending to detonate bombs one by one, and then only going through with it when the future changed as a result. The effect had been that Minene had been able to infer their location remotely and repeatedly nearly kill them. Hiding here, that tactic would no longer work.

Yuki looked around himself at the mangled corpses, and immediately vomited.

"D-don't look at the bodies, Yuki!" Yuno said, her voice full of concern and empathy. "Let's go to the corner. I'll clear an area for us, so you won't have to see."

Still, she wondered what other tricks The Ninth had in store. Even Yuno had to admit the genius of the first tactic. This woman was no joke. She had the will to kill, the tools to do it, and the brilliance to succeed. Only moments earlier, though, right after she had blown up this room, there had been gunshots and an explosion. Perhaps the atrocity had been too much for the police to tolerate, and they had moved in to take her down. Yuno hoped they would be rescued soon, but she would not count on any outside help. The only people she would count on were Yuki and herself.

Once the area had been cleared, Yuno crawled to Yuki. He was on the floor, pressing his head firmly into the corner of the room to hide his eyes, and shaking visibly.

"Don't cry, Yuki. I won't let anything happen to you!" She said, cuddling against his back and wrapping her slim arm around his waist. "This'll be over soon."

Yuki's breath caught in his throat as the girl pressed herself against him, and her warmth radiated through to him. Why was this girl, of all girls, interested in him? Why did he get put in this game, of all people, into a life and death situation? Nothing made sense anymore. He wanted to run away, he wanted to quit the game. Deus had called him broken, but he didn't understand. He didn't feel broken. Yuki just wanted things to go back to how they used to be. Why was the world always changing for him?

The bodies were piled knee deep behind him, and it didn't seem to bother Yuno at all. He was ashamed of his tears, but she never once looked down on him for being weak and crying, and somehow that made him feel all the worse.

"I love you, I won't let anything happen." Yuno repeated gently, pulling him even closer. "Yuki is safe with Yuno."

Usually, Yukiteru was silent at her oft-made declarations of love, but it seemed they wouldn't be going anywhere for a while.

"How can you love me? We barely even know each other." He asked quietly.

"That's not true! I have followed you for a very long time. Yuki might not know Yuno, but Yuno knows Yuki!" declared the girl earnestly. "Maybe at first it was just a crush, but-"

"That's not right. That day, the first time we ever had a conversation, you said so suddenly that you would be my wife..." Yuki began, searching for words that would not insult the girl to whom he owed his life. "I thought you could not have possibly meant it. Part of me felt you must've been making fun of me. Yet you were serious. From the very start you were this way. You think you love me, and you do so much for me, but you really just... picked me at random."

"No, I-" Yuno said, feeling her nose begin to burn with the threat of tears. "That's not the way it is. Yuno really loves Yuki! Yuno's soul can only swim in Yuki's!"

She felt silly saying something like that, but she pressed on. She just wanted Yuki to understand the sincerity of her feelings.

"Back then, I was lost, and maybe I said something carelessly. But that carelessness became the truth! And now there is no one else I could ever have feelings for. Even if you were picked randomly at first, that doesn't mean your value to me has not grown into something real. To love someone is to make a choice, and Yuno chooses Yuki!"

Yukiteru couldn't say anything in response. He took her soft hand into his, and turned over her words. The was no reason for anyone to love him, nothing special about him, but he couldn't very well say such a thing. Even the god of the universe had declared him a broken, useless thing. Fit only to fight and die for his satisfaction. But then, so was Yuno. So, perhaps it was fitting that she should have feelings for him. Two condemned souls, bound up together. He rolled over, facing Yuno, and slowly, he kissed her.

* * *

Yomotsu collapsed behind a house in the tightly packed neighborhood surrounding the school. It had been all he could do to merely tie his shoelaces tightly around a cloth over the deep carved wound on his calf. Just beyond was the scene of the middle school bombing, though, and he would have to push on despite the pain. A hero's greatest asset was not his physical strength or powers, but his will to persevere and leave nothing in the tank. It was show time, and there would be no more limping from here on out.

His own voice, the voice of his diary, spoke into his ears:

**Thirty deg left. Ran forwards five meets. Jumped with bad leg. Launched self off wall with good leg, thrusting right. Grabbed ledge of new wall one meet above to right.**

**Ninety deg left. Found edges of wall ledge. Ran along for three meets, and ducked underneath power line. Ran two more meets, and jumped to left, reaching forwards to grab balcony. Pulled self up, and flipped to left once more, landing on roof. Spotted by police. Ascended to eave of house, and leapt to right, preparing body for roll.**

**Gunshots fired, but miss. Officers commanded to hold fire. Land on roof of news van, rolling into another leap from the edge of the truck. Reached up and grabbed ledge of school perimeter wall. Pulled self up.**

Yomotsu executed the complicated chain of events. He had acquired numerous tools to help him follow the instructions precisely, especially with accurate body orientation which was impossible to do without external help no matter how much practice you had. Luckily, such equipment was commonplace and he had adapted aviation instruments to help direct his body.

As his strong arms pulled himself up feet first onto the balcony like a gymnast on steady rings, he could hear the police began to shout. When he jumped up to the rooftop they were fully engrossed in his performance. He took the flying leap, and heard five powerful shots ring out, but instead of coming from the officers they were coming from inside the school grounds. More shots followed as confused police began to fire at the masked vigilante, and Yomotsu felt the hard metal roof of the news van meet his back. He planted his feet and launched himself in trust towards the perimeter wall he could not sense, and his fingers found its edge.

Pulling himself up once again, he found footing on the top of the wall.

**The Ninth threw a bomb at The Fourth, who is stuck on a mine. Kick dove off of the wall 40 deg right!**

Immediately, he obeyed. There was no time for thought, he crouched his body forward, and gravity pulled him to face downwards, and his feet clung to the edge of the wall and then sprang forward, launching Yomotsu like a javelin down into the middle of the minefield. His arms closed in around The Fourth's torso, and drove him forward with momentum. Yomotsu again kicked hard against the ground, 82 degrees left, and he felt hot wetness break out of his wound as it reopened from the effort. The resulting explosions made any level of consciousness beyond that point impossible, and Twelfth was thrown like a ragdoll clear of the blast and into the brick wall of the school with a sickening, horrifying crunch. When the hero's limp body fell down into the bushes, it did not stir.

It might have killed any other man, but the Twelfth refused to die. He felt like he had drifted a while, but he came to, and his senses returned. The Fourth was wailing out the most wretched, torturous agony off to the right somewhere. Dozens of pairs of police boots were surging into the school grounds, and then there was the pain. Both of his arms were broken severely, shattered against the wall of the building. His nose had also broken from hitting against his shielding arms, and the front of his mask was wet with blood. Yomotsu spat out some teeth and tasted the tinniness of more blood in his mouth. His ribs were broken, and he could barely breathe.

**Vital organs**** and legs uninjured. Stood up by pressing my shoulder into wall and pushing with my knees and legs. Jumped through ground floor window which has been blasted out. Used shoulder to roll off window sill and onto floor inside, avoiding gunshots from police.**

Yomotsu could not believe his ears. His diary expected him to be able to move after that? If he had not grown to trust his diary, he would have told it to go fuck itself. But Yomotsu was a hero, and heroes did not give up. He slowly rose to his feet, his body screaming in white anguish. His lungs were rasping and wheezing for air, suddenly without the support of his pulverized skeleton. Somehow, though, it was possible, and The Twelfth flung himself to safety into the school. His diary gave him more instructions, and he rolled onto his knees, rose, and hobbled further into the dark shelter of the building.

In the other wing of the school, he could hear screams and explosions as one by one, The Ninth began purging the school of life**.** Classroom by classroom her lethal bombs were detonated in response to the invading police. He had failed to stop her. A thousand young children had just had their lives snuffed out by the whims of a homicidal lunatic, and he had failed to stop her. The Twelfth couldn't do it anymore. He collapsed to his knees, rolled onto his back, and passed out cold.


	7. Takao and The Ninth

Minene didn't understand.

She disarmed all remaining bombs' motion triggers, and set them to remote detonation only. She hastened to retreat up the stairwell from the ruined ground floor, and put some space in between her and the invading police forces. She thought The Fourth had cared more about the lives of the kids here, but he had taken his gun out to kill her, and forced her hand. That idiot! She had only been trying to pin him down so she could act freely. Now it was unlikely that she would be able to kill First and Second. Well, it seemed she had severely wounded The Fourth and that interloping circus performer that she guessed from the distinct shape of his head had been Twelfth. Perhaps both the morons would bleed out and save her the work.

She glanced at her escape diary, mopping the sweat of her brow with the puffy sleeves of her dress. At the top of a stairwell, she flung herself around the corner against the wall, sliding down into a sit as she fiddled with her tablet. More lethal rumbles sent shockwaves through the school, dust spilling down from the ceilings. Fourth hadn't been kidding about the tac teams. Whoever was in charge of them was an absolute incompetent. Minene expertly detonated her charges with precise guidance from her diary, killing or injuring almost two dozen police. That would hopefully soften up their organization and morale, however, escaping from this situation wouldn't be easy, even with her diary. Even with a tool as powerful as this, you still had to know how to find the openings. There wasn't much choice, though, since escaping on the ground would be nearly impossible at this point. She had to take to the air.

She had already deployed her rockets in order to create a smokescreen and avoid death at the hands of Fourth when he had tried to kill her. All she had left were the 14 remaining IEDs in the stairwells and hallways of the east wing. She would need most of those just to keep the police at bay. She needed the police to call in the air support.

She could hear the rushing boots of men on the floor below.

"Onee-sama is up here, boys! Why don't you keep running recklessly into my network of bombs!" She called. Just then, the west wing of the school began to collapse in places, so weakened by the massive amounts of ordinance making swiss cheese of its concrete slab structure. Even for her, this was a record. Up until now she had only been focused on killing a few holy men at a time. Killing hundreds was new territory of villainy for Minene. It would end up easily being the worst bombing in Japanese peacetime history, and she wasn't even done yet. She laughed tauntingly at the police at the base of the stairwell, who had learned the hard way they wouldn't be able to just storm the building with heavy weapons. "Getting through all these bombs is going to require a lot of time when I'm right here to detonate them on top of your bomb squads!"

There were numerous things the police could do. The most worrying would be a gas attack or some kind. She needed them to act fast and recklessly, so they would make a mistake.

"There are wounded kids still alive up here, and even a couple that aren't wounded, hiding from me! I'm going to go try to find and kill them, now. Better hurry up and think of a way to stop me! Ta-ta!"

Minene moved up the stairwell with leaps and bounds, jumping two or three stairs at a time. The SIM card and software modifications she had made had basically bricked her phone, so it was now only good for telling the future. If she could get out of here, she would be safe. All she had to do was-

At the top of the stairwell was a broad shouldered man in a suit pointing a police issue revolver at her. He had cool green eyes like The Fourth, but he didn't seem like a cop. His grin was malicious.

"Third..." She breathed. Takao chuckled, tilted his head back slightly, and raised a hand in a shrug.

"None other! You gave it your best shot, Minene-san, but it looks like you've failed. My diary says that First is still alive, and that means Second is as well." Takao said. "Take off your dress."

"Ha!" Minene scoffed. "I knew you were a pervert with the girls, Third!"

It made him livid when she insinuated him as sexually depraved, but he wouldn't lose his cool. The gun he had was unloaded, and Minene didn't need to know that it was just the aluminum eraser bands of pencils taking the appearance of brass bullets in the partially obscured chambers. Minene glared up at the silhouette of the man in front of the western afternoon sun pouring through from the missing wall of the courtyard-face. She reached back, pulled down the zipper of her dress, and let it fall to the ground. Beneath it she wore black spats, the thigh holstered Beretta M9, and a dark lingerie bra.

He disarmed her, cocked the slide back to check the chamber for a bullet, and let the slide snap back into place. He handed her the revolver nonchalantly, and Minene winced, realizing that she had just been held up by an unarmed man.

"You piece of shit!" She screamed, flailing her arms furiously and turning a deep red in embarrassment at her own stupidity. Takao for once was glad of his tinnitus as she screeched at him.

"I'd kill you now, Minene-san, but I need your diary to help me escape." Takao explained. "Want to stay allied for just a little bit longer?"

"As if you're giving me a choice!" She roared outrageously. She was seriously huffing now from her rage, but she had to survive. She tried to calm down. "Why are you even here?"

"Well, I was going to betray you and try to kill as many diary owners as I could using you as bait, then escape with your diary and let you rot in jail while I used your diary to help me kill Fourth. But that plan is out the window thanks to the clusterfuck you've made. Just what the hell happened, anyway? This went further south than Tahiti."

Minene settled a bit. It was true that he needed her diary to escape, so there was still a chance to survive. She would have to kill this bastard soon, though. This made the second time he had bested her, and there would not be a third! She thought about how poorly this had gone, and looked down a little in blushing shame.

"Fourth was less reliable under pressure than I thought, and the police were way too eager on their own triggers. Really it's their fault I had to kill all the hostages." Minene pouted. "Completely reckless."

"Whatever." Takao grunted. "So what's your plan?"

"Already handled. Look." Minene said, pointing up the stairs and out the window. Far off in the haze, they could see a helicopter gunship circling from a safe distance. "They've called in air support."

"And that helps us in... what kind of way?" inquired Takao flatly.

Despite her dire straits, Minene forced a proud smile. "We're going to steal it!"

* * *

Keigo's eyes were wide, his hands clawing at the place where his leg should have been. He stared off into the perfect blue dome of the sky as blood gushed from his stump. From his perspective, it looked like concentric rings of clouds were surrounding him far above; like he was the center of the world. He realized he was screaming. Immediately he stopped, and his whole world came back into order at once. He forced a mask of calm onto his face. His eyes hardened, and he relaxed his posture. A deep thrumming pain coursed up his body, but he ignored it. He was alive; he could feel pain; he would survive. Paramedics rushed through the wall breach the tac team had made, and dumped coagulant agent onto his bloody wound. He spoke firmly without being asked his blood type by the medics. "Type O."

He looked at his phone, and blanched from more than massive blood loss.

**5/02 - 2:30 PM [Sakurami Middle School]**

**Uryuu retreated into the school. Preliminary report suggests she was not injured by my gunshots.**

**SWAT raids the building, and Minene detonates her bombs.**

**5/02 - 7:10 PM [HQ]**

**Unmitigated disaster. Over 600 children dead, 112 wounded with many not expected to survive to morning. Dozens more still missing, feared dead.**

Just then, the explosions went off, one after the other. Keigo was screaming again.

"_NINTH!_" He bellowed seethingly, eyes bulging once more, watching in horror as the lives were extinguished before he could make any reaction whatsoever to the catastrophic news. The paramedics restrained him, and hauled him away as he cried out. Had _he_ not caused this? Had _he_ not accepted the inevitability of this when he turned to gun her down? What could have done differently? He had been railroaded onto this fate by Minene's own actions, but... He remembered, in the instant before he had been forced to draw his weapon: his thought. It escaped his mouth as an inaudible whisper to himself. "Even if all the children died, he could not allow Minene to become god."

His diaphragm shuddered involuntarily with painful shame. He could have stopped it if he had accepted his death and not reacted. Incomprehensible noises escaped Keigo's throat, somewhere between grunting and sobbing, and he passed out somewhere between seeing Nishijima's horrified face and the close of the ambulance doors behind him.

Nishijima Masumi had only been transferred into Keigo's command a year and a half ago, but he was his second in command. There wasn't much he could do now that Tactical had taken over, however. Things appeared to be going dreadfully for them, as well. Between the horrific casualties, Chief Kurusu's massive injuries, and Uryuu Minene's likely death, Masumi felt like he had been punched. When Minene had returned to Japan, she had attempted to kill a priest by impersonating a police officer, and he had unwittingly worked with her. It was during that time that Masumi had unfortunately fallen in love with Minene, and even now, after witnessing her heinous deeds, the feeling persisted and he hated himself for it. He loved Minene, but now she would most certainly die. Even for her, escape no longer seemed possible.

"I'm not even fit for duty." He thought to himself grimly, running both hands through his sandy brown hair while watching the smoke pour from the crippled building beyond the wall. "If it came down to it, there would be no way I could kill her. Even though she feels nothing for me. Even though she shot me in the back when I saved her from the street killer. I am... an idiot."

Another detective came running to Masumi at that moment, handing him a purple phone that Masumi recognized as the Chief's.

"Chief Kurusu wanted this to be given to you before he passed out. He was pretty delirious, but he kept rambling about you keeping it safe." The man explained. Masumi was perplexed, but he took it and examined it. It was opened to its diary, and it was rewriting itself about future events. Masumi's brow creased even more deeply in confusion.

"These numbers couldn't be right," He muttered, staring at the casualty figures. In his gut, though, he knew there was a good chance they were in the right neighborhood. There was bound to be a firestorm of political backlash for this monumental failure, unlike anything Japan had ever seen. Masumi scrolled up as new information flickered in.

**5/02 - 3:10 PM [Sakurami Middle School]**

**The last bombs detonated automatically, killing the police forces inside when the wing collapsed.**

Nishijima didn't understand it. Was the Chief texting him or something? It didn't make sense, but now was the time for action. He moved to the command vehicle, and talked with the thick necked man in charge of Tactical operations, who was pressing his two middle fingers hard into his eyebrow. It was a nightmare scenario for everyone, it seemed.

"Matsuoka-san." Masumi interrupted, addressing the tactics officer by name. "My section chief gave me his phone before he was taken to the hospital. It says the bombs are going to go off at 3:10 PM and bring the whole eastern wing down. I have no idea how he came by this information, but I thought I'd let you know."

"Your idiot chief is the one who caused this mess. I told him not to go in there, and to let my guys handle this!" he blustered. Masumi was sure they would have just been decimated by mines or caused Minene to detonate her bombs regardless, but he didn't say so. "But y'know what, that's fine. I'll pull them out at 3:08. You know who I just got off the phone with? The fucking Prime Minister and his minister of defense. This is a political disaster and they want Uryuu dead at any cost. She has too long a record of making impossible escapes so we're bringing the whole building down on top of her."

"But there are still survivors in there!" Masumi cried, appalled. Was he really concerned for the children, he wondered, or was it for Minene?

"What part of 'orders from the tip top' don't you understand? It's out of everyone's hands now. The story can't end with Uryuu escaping or too many heads will roll."

* * *

Yuno kissed Yuki's hair lovingly, to wake him up. She had allowed him to nap for as long as she could, so that he would not have to be afraid or traumatized by the bodies. He awoke with a start, and began to hyperventilate immediately.

"It's okay, Yuki." She cooed. "But we have to move now, the building has become unstable."

She wouldn't tell him about the significance of the explosions they heard earlier. To Yuki it was just part of the blur of trauma, but Yuno knew that every last one of his friends had been killed. For herself, the people of this school were not relevant, but for Yuki she knew it would be a terrible blow. He was so kind and caring.

Yuki clutched his phone tightly, staring at its prediction that the building would collapse at 3:11.

"H-How can we get down?!" He exclaimed, in a panic. They were on the top floor of the school building. They could descend one floor back down through the collapsed ceiling, but ten meters was still far too long a fall for them to jump out into the safety of the courtyard from.

"We have to fight." Yuno said gently. It was a hideous blow to Yuki to hear something like that. Yuno pointed to the words 'DEAD END" on Yuki's phone, and showed her own dead end flag. "The only way out now is to fight. It means that all other means of escape are no longer possible without confronting another diary owner. It implies that we won't survive if we jump from a window, or if we stay here. The only way forward is through battle."

"How can we fight?" demanded Yuki incredulously. "We're only kids."

Yuno got up, dusted her ragged gym clothes off, and offered her hands to Yuki to help him up. "Your diary is really strong, Yuki! We can use it to evade the bombs in the hallways, and make our way down to the police. But..."

"But the Dead End flags mean we'll have to fight that terrorist somewhere along the way, unavoidably." Yuki finished, resignedly. Yuno nodded. "Then... Let's head for the roof instead."

Yuki's voice had suddenly taken on a note of determination, as the plan came into his mind. Yuno was awestruck by how suddenly his mood had changed, it was one thing she loved about him. He tried to avoid doing what was necessary, but when avoidance was no longer possible, he always chose to act rather than shutting down.

"The police probably have snipers, so The Ninth won't be able to follow us up there." Yuki explained, as they exited the class room into the bomb laden hallways. "Plus, it looks like the school is collapsing. But you can see through the window that the part of the building connecting the two wings has been only lightly damaged so it might not collapse. That'll be the best place to be while waiting for rescue."

Yuno nodded emphatically, beaming. At that moment, the fire alarm began to go off. "We better hurry. Fires have been started by the explosions."

Outside, the hallways were already hazy with smoke. It was worse than Yuno had thought. The pink haired girl took Yuki's hand in hers, and looked at the phone it was holding.

"According to your diary, the bombs are no longer motion sensitive. The Ninth must be monitoring them and detonating them manually again. W-we should make a run for it, Yuki. We might be able to catch her off guard!"

"Whoa, 'might?!'" Yuki asked, startled as the girl began to run, dragging him along behind her. Yuki swallowed hard, and began to run as fast as he could. It only took a beat for the Ninth to react remotely from where ever she was, and the bombs began to explode behind them as they passed. Yuno grabbed Yuki and threw him and herself into a classroom, narrowly avoiding the detonation of another bomb. As if that wasn't enough, there were flames visibly spreading throughout the hallways now, and the smoke was choking and blinding them.

Yuno closed the door, even though its window was blasted out, in a futile attempt to block out some of the smoke. She looked at her diary.

**5/02 - 2:50 PM [Sakurami Middle School]**

**Yuki took cover in the class storage room. The door is keeping out the smoke and it has a window!  
Good thinking, Yuki!**

"Yuki, the storage room!" She yelled, running for it. Inside, they closed the door. Yuki took his jacket off and stuffed it into the base of the door, while Yuno cracked the window for fresh air. They clung together, low to the ground, coughing and sputtering from smoke inhalation. Then, Yuno heard the footsteps. It was hard to make out over the sound of the alarm, but she could definitely hear the heavy footfalls of someone outside the classroom. "Someone's coming, we have to barricade the door!"

Yuki staggered weakly to his feet, and then together they began to push and pull a heavy metal shelving unit to cover the door. Yuki could hear the footsteps too as they ran for the door to open it in response to the loud scraping noise the pair were making with the shelf. It flung open a few centimeters, but caught on the metal of the shelf as it slid home, barring it from opening any further.

Through the crack, Yuno locked eyes with Hiyama Takao, The Third, his head poking through a flame retardant emergency blanket with a hole cut in its center. It was draped around his broad, imposing form like a poncho. Yuno gritted her teeth and flung her weight into the shelf, slamming the door shut all the way.

"Yuki, get down, he's got a gun!" She shouted. Yuki dropped to his knees and shielded his head with his arms, but Takao didn't bother firing. He just laughed, eerily, cold and humorless. With that, he tugged the jacket out from underneath the door, and wedged something thick into the hinge-side so that it couldn't be opened from their side either.

"Breathe deep!" He called as smoke trickled into the room from beneath the reopened gap, and they heard his foot falls walk away. In truth, Takao hadn't known they were there, he had only been fetching a fire extinguisher to open a path for Minene. He wasn't going to waste his limited ammo firing blindly through the door, since his diary already showed him that getting them in there was impossible now. In any case, according to Minene the entire building would collapse any minute, so they were putting their plan into action. Regardless, it seemed very possible that First and Second would die shortly.

"The smoke is coming in!" Yuki stammered, after Takao had gone. Yuno was already up and acting, however, smashing out the small window completely with a bottle of bleach.

"It's too far to jump, but maybe we can still climb down!" Yuno suggested, unsure. She conferred with her diary, but it did not reveal a way. "Quick, Yuki, what does your diary say?"

**5/02 - 2:56 PM [2-C Storage Closet, School]**

**The Third locked us in somehow.**

**5/02 - 2:56 PM [2-C Storage Closet, School]**

**Yuno found some cables for hanging banners during culture festivals, but they were too thin to support our weight.**

"Underneath those banners! Rope!" Yuki replied, and Yuno quickly found the lifelines. Yuno's heart sunk when she examined them. Each was only six meters long, and very frail looking. They could be tied end to end and reach the ground, but it wouldn't hold even one of them. Besides that, the lower stories were engulfed in flames. Yuno was amazed at Yuki's intuition: if they had followed her plan, they might have been caught in the flames and met their dead end. Still, the situation was bleak.

Yuno wasn't ready to give up, though. She had an idea, and a glance at her diary told her it would work. The cables wouldn't get them any closer to the ground, but each rope was more than long enough to make it up the roof only one story above them! As Yuki watched in silent awe, Yuno doubled up all the long thin cords through the handle of a bleach bottle.

That would be her pulley. Securing the loose cables temporarily by tying them to the shelving unit, she threw the tethered bleach upwards through the window as hard as she could, with a trajectory backwards towards the roof. It took several tries, but finally arced all the way over the roof guard fence and settled there. Yuno nodded to herself with satisfaction, and untied the cables. One after another, she tied heavy objects from the storage closet to one end of the cord, and heaved it up and over the fence by the other end. As she worked, she could feel the heat of the door behind her growing hotter. The classroom had been set ablaze, and the smoke was flowing into the small closet as though it were water from a flooded room. It was dark, choking, toxic smoke. Yuki was beginning to cough again, and Yuno's stomach squirmed with worry.

Finally, Yuno had gathered all ten of the cords together in her hand with enough weight on the other end to support one person, and she twisted the strands to increase their combined tensile strength. She verified with her diary.

"Look Yuki! We can make it up to the roof safely with this!" She cried happily, holding the ropes firm. Her phone said it was now 3:07. It had been time consuming to make such a jury rigged pulley, and now the building would be coming down in only four minutes according to the prediction that Yuki's diary had made earlier. "You go first, I'll make sure the ropes stay twisted, then when you get to the other side, you keep them twisted from your end."

"How in the..." He began to say, but Yuno cut him off.

"Hurry, the building will come down any second!"

As if to punctuate her words, the building made a sickening sound like cloth being ripped in slow motion, and the entire structure shuddered. Yuki pushed himself precariously from the windows, scraping his shins on the broken bits of glass laying on its sill. The rope, it seemed, was pulled taut between Yuno's pull and the weight of all the junk draped over the fence at the top. Yuki's mouth was dry, as there were no knots in the rope or anything to catch him if he fell, but the diary predicted his success. This was just like climbing in gym class, he had done things like this before. Yet the ground below him seemed to be stretching out infinitely when he stared at it.

"Don't look down, Yuki. You can do it! Trust your diary; trust yourself!" encouraged Yuno. With a final lurch in his belly, he flung himself out over thin air, and began climbing. The seconds seemed to drag on like hours, as he pulled himself up the cords. Finally, agonizingly, he reached up and grabbed the fence, and scrambled up and over it. His heart sank when he looked at his phone to send a message to Yuno and tell her to climb.

It was 3:10. Around him, portions of the roof had already collapsed inwards, and smoke billowed all around. Tongues of flame were shooting up through one of the gaps, and the building was making long, metallic groans. Out on the street he could see police retreating from the building. It really was going to go down!

"Hurry Yuno!" He cried, gripping the twisted rope. He could feel her body weight lifting and struggling below through the rope, but it didn't seem like it could be fast enough. The entire building lurched, and Yuki fell to his knees. His phone had ticked over to 3:11.


	8. Takao and Minene

"Activity on the east face of the east wing." Reported the pilot of the circling gunship, his keen brown eyes surveying the distant targets. "Looks like the whole building is starting to come down."

"Copy, one-three, sniper units confirm two children climbing up the eastern face." Answered a voice over the radio. "Standby on OPORD."

"Acknowledge standby." The pilot said. He had been waiting for the go-ahead to raze the building, but the confirmation of children still alive and uninjured had caused a delay. He watched apathetically as the boy on the roof fell with a giant slab of the roof as it caved in. The boy was holding onto a rope, as tongues of flames jetted upwards from the dark smokey fissure in the structure, shooting towards fresh oxygen and suddenly beginning to burn hotter and higher. The boy was kicking, his legs becoming burnt, but he was holding on, while the second child, a girl, climbed up far enough to grab the fence.

Watching their valiant struggles against the peril from afar was such a surreal sensation. He wanted them to get clear or, failing that, just die so that he could take Uryuu out. He wouldn't let her escape this time. Somewhere in that building she was trapped and choking down the ashes of her own creation. It was poetic.

The girl flung herself over the fence, and pulled the boy up, and he looked to be quite injured and no longer able to walk. Heartbreakingly, she was dragging him by his arms away from the collapsing building. It was painfully slow, but with each tug and heave of the small girl, she was making headway from the portion of the building caving in, and soon she had made it all the way to the ell of the building where she collapsed. They seemed to really care about each other, and the pilot felt a little bad for them.

"One-three, the news choppers got footage of the kids" sighed the crackling voice on the radio. "The whole playbook is out the window. You're gonna have to close in and cover the escape."

"Message received, will comply." The pilot forced himself to say, as professionally as possible. His face burned with anger, and he disabled the radio to curse with his gunner.

* * *

Takao sprayed the last of the extinguisher out at the base of the fire and tossed the exhausted canister aside. Behind him, Minene walked quietly, eying the gun wielding psychopath. There was only one bomb left undetonated, and it was dead ahead. They were presently making their way through the ell of the building which, while structurally intact, was still in flames.

Takao looked back at the purple haired terrorist, but she was staring at her feet submissively in defeat.

"Just a little closer..." Minene thought, eyes shifting back up after Takao turned away.

_BOOM!_

Minene detonated the bomb, and Takao was flung forwards hard to the ground. Minene ran forward laughing, and dove for the gun as it left his hand. She slid across the sooty tiles, and her hands closed around the pistol's grip. "Yes!"

Minene rolled over, hefting the gun towards where Takao had been, but he had moved off to her side, and his leg was reared back. Minene winced from the noise of the gun's discharge and squeaked out in pain when the foot collided with her hands before she could aim, knocking the gun away once more. He kicked her again, this time in the face, but she latched on with both arms to his leg. Her lips were cut on her teeth, and she tasted blood, but she was a vicious shark and was completely undeterred by the blow. She bit hard into his lower shin as he began to deck her repeatedly in the head with a powerful fist.

"You piece of shit! It's over for you!" She shouted angrily as her jaw was wrenched free from his leg, scraping a good deal of his skin away with it. She thrust her palm into his groin, and he doubled over in pain while she made a break to recover the gun one more time. This time, nothing would stop her. She leapt forward, grabbed the gun in a roll, and pounced to her feet, turning to shoot. Takao, however, had gone. For a minute, Minene was silent, but the rage began to build up visibly in her face. "WHY IS EVERYONE SO GOD DAMNED HARD TO KILL?!"

She shifted back into motion, moving forward like a fluid, and sweeping the pistol with both hands around the corner to find the killer. She had no time to hunt him, her only chance for escape was growing louder. Helicopters were closing in, and she still had her plan. The fire had been useful for keeping the police from overwhelming the building, but it was time to reactivate the water main. A few pushes on her tablet, and the sprinklers all activated at once, dousing the flames everywhere that there were still walls for pipes to sit in. That, however, wasn't her objective.

In one of the top floor rooms with its face blasted out, she found iron bars, and rolled a gigantic slab of concrete towards the precipice. With much effort, she bent the rebar jutting from its edges into a sturdy handle, and from her bag she pulled out a grappling hook and metal cable. She fastened the loose end to the handle, and made her way to the roof stairwell. Inside, a fire hose locker had been released by the fire, and she loaded her grappling hook into its nozzle. Her beautiful but sweaty and soot streaked face became a placid mask of serenity as she looked at her diary. It was going to work.

She raced up the stairwell, perching herself against the door out onto the roof. Through the small window, she could see a civilian helicopter lowering down. The gunship was hovering higher, just beyond, covering it as men lowered down onto the roof to hoist - First and Second? Those lucky little snots!

In any case, she only had to watch the seconds tick away on her phone until it was time to strike. Finally, when the exact instant came, she followed her diary's instructions, flinging open the door. Immediately, she saw the spark of a bullet piercing the door from sniper fire, but it did not concern her. The civilian chopper hastened to pull away, but it wasn't what she was aiming for.

She smiled at the pilot of the gunship, and pulled the lever on her firehose. She felt its fabric inflate behind her as water built up, and then it fired the hook with great pressure. Miraculously, it sailed right between the skis and hooked firmly into place on them, the magic of a diary's prescience in action. She jumped down the stair well before it could open fire on her, tore into the classroom, and threw her heel into the giant tethered slab, sending it tumbling off the side of the building and all the way down to the ground. Above, she heard the chopper rotors straining under the massive load, and the helicopter smacking its belly with a crunch into the roof.

Taking two smoke bombs out, she discarded her tablet and her empty bag, and raced back up to the roof, tossing both smoke screens out to provide her with heavy cover to make it to the helicopter. She tossed them out to let the smoke begin building up, and lined up her pistol, shooting first the gunner, and then the pilot multiple times each.

It was at that instant that Takao's drop punch came down into Minene's jaw.

Minene couldn't see anything but a burst of lights as she tumbled to the ground heavily. She immediately thrust out behind her with her leg to trip Takao, but her leg caught on nothing. Takao had jumped backwards and produced a large shard of glass wrapped in cloth, and her eyes widened as he fell on her. She thrust her forearm out behind her to catch the stab, and rolled onto her back to push out with all her strength. Takao just kept leaning and pushing in, however, far stronger than Minene.

"No, stop, you need me to fly the chopper! You don't know how!" Minene spat, undignified as she sputtered and strained against the incoming point of the shard towards her breast. Takao was breathing heavily, aroused by the impending kill, the improvised dagger inching closer and closer to her heart. Minene's eyes welled up with tears.

Minene knew there was no escaping from this situation. It was the end for her, at long last. She shook her head furiously, tears pouring down her cheeks and dampening the hair at her temples. She pushed, but it was like she was pushing against a solid iron wall, so relentless was Takao's attack. Her legs kicked weakly underneath his weight. She began to cry out incoherently. She was going to die like this, a pathetic and powerless plaything for this sick killer. She began sobbing in earnest; at least she wouldn't beg.

With that final thought, Takao's makeshift blade drove home into her, and she choked out a final scream, and as the intense sensation of her pierced heart blossomed across her limbs and neck, her eyes rolled back, and everything vanished from her world. Nearly instantly, she perished.

Takao panted atop her small body, and he leaned forward, pushing his tongue into her unresisting mouth. He kissed the corpse deeply, groped her, and pulled himself free to run to the waiting chopper. The survival game had claimed its first player.

* * *

Takao walked out onto the breezy smoke covered roof, his fireblanket poncho flapping in the wind of the rotors. He hadn't been able to hear a single thing since Minene had tried to kill him with her bomb. The roar of the helicopter blades was an eerily silent buffeting of air on his face. He unfastened the cable from the hook on its ski, and climbed into its cockpit, heaving the pilot out and onto the ground like a wet sack of potatoes. Then, taking the pitch controller into his hand, he turned the helicopter around to face the many police gathered at the gate of the school. He leaned the helicopter forward slightly, increased the rotor power, and lifted the battered skis gently off of the roof.

Takao had never flown a _gunship_ before, but there was a first time for everything. Now where had that chopper carrying First gone?


End file.
